now i know its a defective hard drive. but i keep thinking that the jumpers are wrong on it. i am running a seagate barracuda ata v hard drive at approx. 20 GB. was working when pulled from computer. hard drive now does not turn on at all. that PSU wont power up with the hard drive connected. does it on 3 PSUs so far. curious as to whether it's a hard drive problem or if i dont have the jumpers hooked up right. can't find any help on seagates website and no technical support for the drive. any help would be greatly appreciated!
Tek-Tips is the largest IT community on the Internet today!
Members share and learn making Tek-Tips Forums the best source of peer-reviewed technical information on the Internet!
-
Congratulations Mike Lewis on being selected by the Tek-Tips community for having the most helpful posts in the forums last week. Way to Go!
computer refuses to turn on after hooking up hard drive.
- Thread starter ghrark
- Start date
If you don't hook up the data cable, but just have the 4-pin molex power connector plugged in, jumpering on an ATA drive becomes irrelevant. So with that scenario, if it still prevents the PSU from starting up, the drive has a major problem.
Seagate drives usually have an STxxxxxx model number. This ought to allow the relevant details to be obtained from Seagate's website.
ROGER - G0AOZ.
Seagate drives usually have an STxxxxxx model number. This ought to allow the relevant details to be obtained from Seagate's website.
ROGER - G0AOZ.
- Thread starter
- #3
ok. heres the deal. it's my wife's old hard drive from her computer. i recently had problems with her psu and her cpu wouldnt work. so i took the whole computer apart and hooked the hard drive up to my computer which was a whole lot faster. now that computer went south with the hard drives had hooked up to it. so now i'm back with my wife's old cpu and board because they just started working again. so im stuck with this seagate hard disk drive and nothing is working. it doesn't matter whether the data cable is hooked up. the computer will not startup at all. so any ideas here? could the power on the drive possibly have crossed or burned out on the hard drive?
Sounds like the hard drive has a short. MB's and PSU's usually will not power on if such a problem exists.
If the MB and PSU work without the drive plugged in, then the drive is likely toast.
You may be able to find a replacement controller board for it and see if that solves the problem.
You can also try to put the drive into a USB external enclosure and see if it will power up and spin.
Otherwise it looks like the drive has a major electric problem somewhere.
----------------------------------
Ignorance is not necessarily Bliss, case in point:
Unknown has caused an Unknown Error on Unknown and must be shutdown to prevent damage to Unknown.
If the MB and PSU work without the drive plugged in, then the drive is likely toast.
You may be able to find a replacement controller board for it and see if that solves the problem.
You can also try to put the drive into a USB external enclosure and see if it will power up and spin.
Otherwise it looks like the drive has a major electric problem somewhere.
----------------------------------
Ignorance is not necessarily Bliss, case in point:
Unknown has caused an Unknown Error on Unknown and must be shutdown to prevent damage to Unknown.
my guess is that you hooked up the IDE cable the wrong way around... which will cause a short in the system, which in turn prevents the PSU from powering up...
now I know that cables these days are keyed, so as to prevent the wrongful insertion, but there are ancient cables out there that do not have these keys...
Ben
"If it works don't fix it! If it doesn't use a sledgehammer..."
now I know that cables these days are keyed, so as to prevent the wrongful insertion, but there are ancient cables out there that do not have these keys...
Ben
"If it works don't fix it! If it doesn't use a sledgehammer..."
A backwards cable doesn't short out things like a reversed power cable or an offset floppy power cable, both of which have the potential to be catastrophic.
With the cable backwards the controller doesn't get the correct response and hangs up with the machine dead in the water during early POST. But since you had the data cable disconnected all this is for nought.
Hard drives have been known to short motor supply to ground, leading to a crowbar shutdown. PS fan makes about 1/4 turn most of the time, then dies. It tries to spin up as +12 is coming up then the crowbar shuts it down.
Ed Fair
Give the wrong symptoms, get the wrong solutions.
With the cable backwards the controller doesn't get the correct response and hangs up with the machine dead in the water during early POST. But since you had the data cable disconnected all this is for nought.
Hard drives have been known to short motor supply to ground, leading to a crowbar shutdown. PS fan makes about 1/4 turn most of the time, then dies. It tries to spin up as +12 is coming up then the crowbar shuts it down.
Ed Fair
Give the wrong symptoms, get the wrong solutions.
Here it is the 8th, and my first service call is for a hard drive that keeps the power supply from coming up. This is after replacing a DEER PS that went out at the same time. One of those chicken and egg controversies but DEER is a known problem.
Customer dropped the machine about 6" to a tile floor during an desk change. Could have had an effect.
Ed Fair
Give the wrong symptoms, get the wrong solutions.
Customer dropped the machine about 6" to a tile floor during an desk change. Could have had an effect.
Ed Fair
Give the wrong symptoms, get the wrong solutions.
BBB,
Can't recall ever losing one when it was just a reversal. It may also be drive specific and I haven't been unlucky enough to hit the combination that fries stuff. Or a combination with 2 drives.
It also probably helps that most of the filesystems I work with now are on SCSI.
Ed Fair
Give the wrong symptoms, get the wrong solutions.
Can't recall ever losing one when it was just a reversal. It may also be drive specific and I haven't been unlucky enough to hit the combination that fries stuff. Or a combination with 2 drives.
It also probably helps that most of the filesystems I work with now are on SCSI.
Ed Fair
Give the wrong symptoms, get the wrong solutions.
LawnBoy
MIS
- Mar 12, 2003
- 2,881
My experience echoes that of edfair. Sure, hooking an IDE cable up backwards can blow the comm port on either the M/B or the drive or both (I've also seen no damage at all), but doesn't crowbar the PSU.
Here's the pinout of an IDE cable:
You'll notice that there is no POWER pin, only ground. The data bus can get shorted out, but not the power bus.
--
The stagehand's axiom: "Never lift what you can drag, never drag what you can roll, never roll what you can leave.
Here's the pinout of an IDE cable:
You'll notice that there is no POWER pin, only ground. The data bus can get shorted out, but not the power bus.
--
The stagehand's axiom: "Never lift what you can drag, never drag what you can roll, never roll what you can leave.
- Thread starter
- #12
ok you guys have been really a lot of help. im sure the ide cable isnt the problem as it's keyed so ill know if i put it in wrong. i always use plenty of light and keep a flashlight handy. what im saying is the drive wont spin up and the rest of the computer wont turn on as well. i did it with and without the IDE cable with the same results. is it possible at this point to see if someone can just recover the data from the hard drive for me?
Platter recovery is always possible (unless a large magnet, sledge or heavy vehicle was used... lol), but it'll be expensive.
You could try a drive controller replace, but unless it's an identical drive, you're a bit outta luck on that one...
If the data was mission critical, pay the money for a pro to read it. If not, well... that's for the decision makers to call on...
cckens
"Not always my best shot, but I hit the target now and then"
-me
You could try a drive controller replace, but unless it's an identical drive, you're a bit outta luck on that one...
If the data was mission critical, pay the money for a pro to read it. If not, well... that's for the decision makers to call on...
cckens
"Not always my best shot, but I hit the target now and then"
-me
- Thread starter
- #14
Look for patch levels. Generally by part number with patch level data following.
With same patch level you can try. Without is at some risk.
Looking almost the same isn't at the same patch level.
As a production run continues the manufacturers change things to improve operation. Maybe tweaking timings, maybe replacing a problem component. All at the same patch level will be identical except for possible identical individual parts from different manufacturers.
Ed Fair
Give the wrong symptoms, get the wrong solutions.
With same patch level you can try. Without is at some risk.
Looking almost the same isn't at the same patch level.
As a production run continues the manufacturers change things to improve operation. Maybe tweaking timings, maybe replacing a problem component. All at the same patch level will be identical except for possible identical individual parts from different manufacturers.
Ed Fair
Give the wrong symptoms, get the wrong solutions.
- Thread starter
- #16
ok i looked at the model numbers and they are identical except for the numbers that ascertain to the drive size. same kind of board it looks like but i think im gonna have to see if the local tech can salvage the drive or the data. it is critical since it's my wife's drive and she wants her pictures and music so cool beans dudes! thanks for the help!
This would be a time to mention backups. ![[wink]](/data/assets/smilies/wink.gif "[wink] [wink]")
If those pics, etc, were backed up, then you could save your time, smash that drive, and buy a larger drive for between $50 and $100 with warranty.
--
"If to err is human, then I must be some kind of human!" -Me
If those pics, etc, were backed up, then you could save your time, smash that drive, and buy a larger drive for between $50 and $100 with warranty.
--
"If to err is human, then I must be some kind of human!" -Me
- Status
Similar threads
- Locked
- Question
- Locked
- Question
