IDE / ATAPI Troubles!!!

[dodgyone]

My friend tried to fix his own computer and pulled out all of the IDE cables and tried to add a second hard drive.

I've tried fixing all of the cables back in place and resetting the master and slave settings but I'm not sure how the cables attach. It may sound stupid but does it matter which way the cable is attached to the IDE port on the motherboard and the drives?

The thing is that the monitor does not start-up any more when I try to re-boot. The graphics card is alright... I have tested it on another machine. I was wondering if an incorrect IDE configuration could cause this kind of problem or if he has touched something else to cause this kind of problem...

Many thnks...

 

[Joelee]

Generally the cable will have a red line designating the #1 pin position. The drive on the rear should have the pins numbered i.e. 1 and 40. Make sure the red line on the cable is in the number one position on the drive and MoBo (the board should have the #1 and #40 position numbered as well.)

While you were reattaching cables, you may have unseated the video card slightly. Check to make sure it is seated all the way. Are you getting any beeps when you start up? Do you have any picture at all?

Hope this helps
Joelee :-{}

 

[dodgyone]

Nope... I'm getting no display on the monitor and I've tried another graphics card that should work alright... still no joy. It doesn't seem to make the startup beep like it used ot either... would the ide wrongly configured stop the monitor from starting up?

Thanks for trying to help ;o)

 

[Joelee]

Did you play with any settings in the BIOS or just the hardware? When you don't set the slave and master jumpers on the drives they will not be recognized properly, I have never seen incorrect settings disrupt video.
* Check the video card in another machine
* Check the monitor on another machine
* If you played with settings in the bios, change them back
* Check to make sure you have the jumper settings on the drives set correctly

Joelee :-{}

 

[dodgyone]

Thanks... I'll check the monitor asap and get back to you. I'm sure the jumper settings are right as I've started from scratch with just the original hard drive and no other ATAPI drives than that one.

The BIOS IDE drive settings may have been altered (he thinks that he might of touched something in there) so I'll take out the BIOS battery to reset this right (leave it out for a length of time or will just taking it out and putting it back in do the trick?)?

Cheers for the advice..

 

[ceh4702]

Sometimes the video boots up totally black. If the new harddrive doesnt have the video card drivers that could cause problems. Try pressing F8 when If you have a good graphics card, it is advisable to set it to the lowest setting when changing hardware.

You sure you didnt unseat the memory?

You might have blown out the power supply....

Sometimes it just shorts out.

You could try reseating all the plugs. Like the main power cord from the power supply to the motherboard. Also try reseating the CPU (Drastic measure). Make sure the power plug is plugged in correctly. Make sure the Drives are plugged into the power cord. Make sure the Floopy is plugged into the FDD port, and not the EIDE port. This is usually the first drive looked for. If you cant see the bios settings you can not change anything.

Sometimes there is a toggle switch on the back of the case to turn off the power supply. You didn't forget about it did you?

Do the fans run and keep running?

Does the system shut itself off?

Do you see lights come on on the hard drive/CD/FLOPPY?

Did smoke rise up from the motherboard?

Might be easier to start from scratch by taking all the I/O cards out of the sytem and putting the original hard drive back in and reinstalling the hardware one thing at a time. If the video doesn't work, it is useless. Sometimes I/O cards can touch together and short. A computer should start with just the Floppy and the video card and the memory, with a CPU. Make sure the fan on the CPU is plugged in. A lot of the CPU's have built in sensors. Some motherboards have safety systems designed to fail if the fan is not running or the CPU is at the wrong setting.

Your friend might have misadvertently pulled out a pin/jumper that controls a multiplier or a CPU voltage. This could cause the system not to start.

Even if nothing worked I would expect to see a flashing cursor. We are assuming you plugged in the monitor right. If you do not like my post feel free to point out your opinion or my errors.

 

[Beaux]

I've seen this problem with the comp not sending any signal to the monitor a lot, both on my own computer and in these forums. It seems that whenever anything goes wrong, no matter what it is, the comp reacts by not sending anything to the monitor.
(When it happened to my computer, I was also doing stuff with the hard drives.)
I fixed it on my computer by getting a BIOS backup disk from my comp manufacturer's website. That worked for me. Who knows if it'd work for you...