Hard Drive won't recognize and cables are mixed up.

Okay here is my problem....I sold my computer to my sister..she calls me and says..something is wrong...Jim took out the hard drive and put his brothers in to see if it would work..When he put the hard drive back in...it wouldn't detect it..I dont know what is wrong..now this is my problem. When I go to boot up the computer it says insert boot disk.. I checked the cmos and none of the hard drive settings match.. I tried auto detect, but it can't find the hard drive. I think the cables are mixed up too. There are two cables I know one can be hooked up to two items and one hooked up to another. The hard drive is an IDEO hard drive, I installed it before. But now it wont recognize. I can't even get it out to check the numbers on it because he stripped the screws....what luck right? Anyway, where do the cables go on the mother board so that I can hook up the hard drive, floppy and the cd rom. I'm working with a 200 mhz pentium processor. Also what do i do if i can't get it to recognize the hard drive....She puts this on me..and I'm not the one who messed it up....Please help me..If I dont fix this thing, I'm going to feel responsible for forever.

Hi ivj3.

When you look at the IDE cables, you should notice that there is a red stripe down one edge. Most motherboards have the ide0+1 or ide1+2 printed next to the connections for the IDE conections. You connect the cable to the motherboard with the stripe next to pin1 on ide0 (if labelled ide0 & ide1) and the stripe connects to the harddrive nearest the power connector (on most IDE's at least- Its labelled pin1 on the drive as well anyway). If there isn't a stripe just remember to check that pin1 on motherboard goes to pin1 on drive. If the PC isn't autodetecting the hard disk, if you know the drive make and model, you can find the heads / cylinders / sectors info on the manufacturers site usually.

Okay this is what I did, and I also have a problem.

Before the hard drive wasn't being detected at all, now this is my problem.

I have three slots on my mother board..it is a generic TopGun mother board, there is nothing written to let me know which slot is which. There is a small one at the top that only the floppy fits, and then two larger ones below it. I hooked up the hard drive and the cd rom on the same cable like it was initially installed as..and i put the floppy in the top slot where the small one is. Now...this is my problem. I turn on the computer, the hard drive is reading..I get no picture on the monitor, and I keep getting this beeping noise. I put the cable to the hard drive underneath the floppy slot which is the middle. Since the slots are not telling me which one is which, i'm fiddling around here. I can't tell what is what. Now, the settings on the hard drive..ummm the pins in the back...i forget right now, i'm so frustrated. They are set to the default settings. If this works this will be nice, but what on earth is that beeping noise, and why don't I get any picture on the monitor? I'm taking a break, but if you can respond soon, please do. Thanks.

Ivana

Hi!
Try one item at a time. Plug in the floppy drive. Nothing on the IDE channels. Boot the computer. It should look for a boot drive and give you an error message. If you have a boot disk, put it in the floppy and see if it boots. If the floppy drive light comes on at boot and stays on, it is probably backwards.

Get a magnifying glass and flashlight (if you are as blind as me) and look by those connectors. They may have IDE PRI and IDE SEC or IDE 0 and IDE 1 by them or maybe PRI and SEC. Look for a number by on end of the connectors. It may be 1, 2 or 40. Or maybe only one of the connectors has a marking. This will indicate which end is 1. Hook the IDE cable to this, making sure you have the red line on the cable to pin 1.

On the back of the hard drive there should be a set of jumper connectors. They should have markings such as Slave,Master, Single, Cable Select (CS). The drive will probably have a chart for these. Set it up for Single operation.

Plug in the connectors to the hard drive and boot the computer. See if the the drive indicates during the boot up and that you don't have the beeping. Set the drive up in the CMOS.

If that works, connect the CDROM on the other IDE Channel. Make sure the juper in the back is set to MASTER (just like the hard drive). If you have to put them on the same channel, change the jumper on the Hard drive to MASTER. Then make sure the same type jumper on the CDROM is set as SLAVE.

Dennis

Dennis, I got the computer running, the hard drive, (which i re-installed win98) the cd rom, the sound card, and modem, now I can't seem to get the floppy drive to work. The floppy is connected at the mother board with the red stripe to the right. It is currently connected to the floppy drive with the red stripe out to the right. However, the green light wont go off at all. If I turn the cable to the left connecting to the floppy drive there is no response. I'm not sure why I can't get the floppy to work.. Do you have any suggestions?

Hi!
Well that's progress. Check the connector at the motherboard real close and make sure you are not shifted one way or the other. Of course I have no experience doing that. Nor would I ever miss a complete row of a two row connector, now would I. If you have the number one pin on the motherboard connected to the red mark on the ribbon cable, the cabl could be backwards at the floppy drive. The light staying on seems to indicate that.

Make sure the A drive is connected past the point in the cable where you see some wires twisted over. If the connector is not past that point, it will be B drive.

Check the CMOS the the floppy is set with A as the 1.44 3.5" drive.

That's all I can think of right now.

Dennis