Computer Repair

If the drives still don't register properly, make sure the power cable is seated in the drive's power socket, which can take a bit of force. The ribbon cable connectors must also be seated all the way into the IDE port on both the drives and the motherboard, or adapter card if you're are using a RAID adapter. The most common reason for a cabling failure of this sort is that the connection was partially dislodged when you were working in the case on something else. Try a new ribbon cable. While cable failures are rare, it can happen, and it's a favorite trick of investigative reporters writing articles about computer repair rip-offs to intentionally introduce a bad IDE cable into a PC, just to see how many parts a shop will sell them.
Are the ribbon cable connectors and the IDE ports on the drives and the motherboard keyed such that the cable can only go one way? Check the pin 1 location on all of the connectors and ports. On IDE drives, pin 1 is traditionally located next to the power cord, but it's not a 100% rule for all time. Motherboards can be pretty strange about cable ports. I've even remember an old one where the pin numbering on the floppy and IDE interfaces were oriented in opposite directions. The pin 1 location on the motherboard is normally marked with an arrow, a dot, a white square, anything to show one end of the interface as different from the other. If the motherboard won't register any drive you attach, even on new cables, and if those drives are spinning up, it indicates that either the IDE controller is bad or all the drives you've tried are bad. You can try running on the secondary IDE controller if you've only been working with the primary, but the next stop is installing an add-in IDE adapter or replacing the motherboard.
The troubleshooting procedures for ATA drives that aren't recognized by the BIOS are identical, whether they are hard drives, CDs, DVDs, tapes or any other ATA device. If the BIOS registers the installed ATA drives correctly and the drive you're having problems with is a CD or DVD, proceed to the CD or DVD Failure diagnostics.
Does the drive cycle up and down? Try swapping the power lead for a spare or one used by another drive. For older IDE drives, try isolating the drive on its ribbon cable, even if it means temporarily doing without another drive for the sake of troubleshooting. If neither fix helps, try disconnecting the data cable to ensure that the drive isn't receiving some flaky power down signal from a bad ATA interface or crazy power management scheme. If it still cycles up and down, the drive is probably toast. Test the drive in another system or a USB shell before labeling it dead.
If you have an old drive that spins up but won't seek (you never hear the head move in and out), it's probably a mechanical failure. The last ditch effort before giving up or sending it out for data recovery is tapping lightly with a screwdriver on the cover of the drive, away from the circular section where the disks are spinning. This might encourage a stuck head to get moving. Freezing the drive for a few hours in the freezer (use a sealed bag) may get you temporary access to a drive with failing electronics that overheat in a hurry. Just make sure you have your backup media prepared if you try any of these last ditch efforts, because it may work just the one time.
Does the drive make little clicking noises and fail to get going? Restart the machine, with the reset button if you have one, and hopefully it will boot. If not, try in a warmer room, or put the PC in direct sunlight to warm up and then try it again. You can also replace a laptop hard drive, in fact, it's one of the few components that can be easily procured. It's far from guaranteed, but this is one of the few problems that can result from the drive being too cold rather than too hot. If you do get it started, run ScanDisk. It doesn't hurt to reseat all of the cables on the drive and the ribbon cable to the motherboard, since connections can also loosen up over time. However, if you can't get it going, it could be a legitimate drive failure. If you mind losing all of the data onboard, try FDISKing and reinstalling the operating system again.
Does the BIOS report the transfer mode correctly for older PATA drives, ie, UDMA/100, ATA/66? UDMA must be enabled in CMOS, or set on "Auto," for high speed transfers. IDE hard drives after around 1995 require the 80 wire ribbon cable, at least for high speed operation. You can check CMOS Setup to see if there's a manual override to select the higher speed transfers, though the automatic settings should pick it up. Also try isolating the hard drive as the sole device on the primary controller. If you're adding a new hard drive to an older system, it's possible that the old motherboard and BIOS simply don't support the faster transfer, even with the new cable. I'd be leery of flashing the BIOS to try to get the speed up, even if the motherboard manufacturer supplies it.
Can you install an operating system, or access the drive with any generation of FDISK to create or view partitions? Check again that the ribbon cable is fully and evenly seated and there aren't any "read only" jumpers set on the drive (normally only found on SCSI's). Try a new ribbon cable. If this doesn't do it, it sounds like either the drive's MBR is messed up, or there's a problem with the way the software is communicating with the BIOS, which really shouldn't happen. If you don't mind losing whatever info is on the drive, you can try FDISK/MBR and see if it helps.

__________________




R.I.P My Brother, J.M.S
USAF 1Lt, Computer/Network Tech
Air Force Security Forces
Comp Specs
CPU: Intel Core i7-965 Extreme Edition 3.9GHz
motherboard: Intel X58
www.comptechacr.com