I have PC that functions perfectly well.
I have another PC also functioning perfectly well with an IDE disk that I want to move into the first PC.
When I try to move the disk and connect a power source in the first PC to this IDE disk then the PC powers down!
This is not a power capacity problem, I have a good 400W supply and the PC still cuts out if every other peripheral is disconnected.
This is not a configuration problem, I am not plugging in the controller cable (yet).
The disk still works fine if I put it back into the second PC.
Disk is an 80GB Maxtor, Gigabyte AMD motherboard on the problem PC.
Any thougts?
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Just to make sure, and I'm not trying to sound condescending here, the way you state your problem it sounds as if you are plugging the hard drive in while the computeris running. -->When I try to move the disk and connect a power source in the first PC to this IDE disk then the PC powers down!<--
Is this the case or is my imagination getting the best of me.
I have tried all of the connectors from this power supply with no joy.
Yes, I am connecting while the PC power is off, the PC powers down virtually instantly after I hit the on button. No bios spash screen.
I don't think that it is the total power supply as it quite happily powers the other disk and dvd etc. I suspect that either the disk or the power supply may be defective, but I don't think that its overall power as I have had nultiple disks on this motherboard quite happily before.
As I don't have a spare power supply that I would actually leave in the box I think I'd rather get a new disk!
Rgds
Simple test to see if it's a power overload issue: unplug the power connectors from your DVD drive and your other hard drive (Yes, the system won't boot that way -- but if you then get a BIOS splash screen, it's likely that the startup current from the added hard drive is simply overloading the power supply). I agree that if you've had other drives on that PC before this is unlikely -- but it's worth testing.
Should have taken the blue pill, I think I am going mad.
I am now having the problem with two drives.
One of them booted the machine fine this morning with a server 2003 installation. What I did was wipe the secod drive and copy across the XP boot partition from the problem drive.
Takes a second or two longer to freeze, but then it is an older, slower 40gb disk.
Now am I mad or can anyone think of anything about a partition configuration that could get a disk upset when you feed it some juice.
Just to be clear, both disks still boot and operate perfectly on the old pentium II`.
Both drives still work fine on the old system, both are bootable now so they both work as master or slave.
The old disk on the problem system WAS the 40gb Server 2003 disk that I copied the XP partition onto and is now the second problem disk!
I am about the plug one of the disks into another amd motherboard with a similar qtec power supply. If that works I may just replace the motherboard via ebay as that has to be less effort than this!
Well the disk works fine on the second amd box.
So, favourite option has to be swap power supplies and see what happens, I guess that it is possible that it is defective.
As to the motherboard, I am guessing that maybe it is just vulnerable to a power fluctuation when the disk tries to spin up, though why this should suddenly start happening is a mystery.,
As to the motherboard not being involved, I would tend to agree but I am not 100 percent certain given the mysteries of acpi and power management etc.
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by: CallandorPosted on 2006-07-20 at 06:05:52ID: 17145799
Have you tried a different power connector? There is still a chance that the 400W power supply is insufficient. Most people don't realize that it is the current available on the +12v rail that determines if there is sufficient power to boot up. Manufacturers can say they have a 400W power supply, but if the current is all in the +5v and +3.3v rails, it won't do you any good. There's also the possibility that there's something wrong with the supply, so try a different one.