bronco2
asked on
power to but no I/O to harddrive
I tried installing a cd-rom on a 486 AST computer. Seemed simple enough. I put the cdrom as slave on the harddrive ribbon cable. Put it all together, nothing worked. Went back and put things as they were. No luck. Took every thing out, put back together piece by piece. I have the floppy working. There is power to floppy, 5 1/4, cd-rom, and HD. I used the startup disk but can't get things going. When I start up, I can hear the HD working but can't get it to come on line. I've tried using DOS but I'm not familier with it. None of the commands seem to let me into the HD.
This is a project unit to gain experience with. I want to have a good understanding how things work inside before I open my other unit. It's working and under warranty. :)
There's power to the HD, and when the unit is started you can hear the HD clicking (normal 4 this one), but I'm unable to get any input/output fron the HD. The cdrom is on the same ribbon as the HD. Is there any way of cking to see if there are signals going to the HD and/or cdrom?
thanks
bronco2
This is a project unit to gain experience with. I want to have a good understanding how things work inside before I open my other unit. It's working and under warranty. :)
There's power to the HD, and when the unit is started you can hear the HD clicking (normal 4 this one), but I'm unable to get any input/output fron the HD. The cdrom is on the same ribbon as the HD. Is there any way of cking to see if there are signals going to the HD and/or cdrom?
thanks
bronco2
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bronco2,
I would temporarily disconnect the CDROM from the data cable and set the hard drive configuration jumper/s for "single drive" setting. (As opposed to "master w/slave present")
Your problem is probably due to the way the 40-pin data cable is installed.
Check that you have the cable oriented correctly. There should be a colored stripe on one edge of the cable. This stripe is positioned next to pin-1 of the connector at each end. On the hard drive, pin-1 is usually located on the side of it's 40-pin socket nearest the power connector. At the motherboard or I/O interface card, look for the numeral "1" written on the board at one end of its 40-pin IDE socket or header. (A header is the double row of pins that the cable connector plugs onto) There should be some way to identify the pin-1 location. Sometimes it is a small square mark printed on the board. If nothing can be seen, check the location of any other cables that may be installed. They are usually all oriented in the same direction.
This done, check your CMOS setup to be sure the hard drive settings are configured properly.
The computer should boot now, or at least ask you to insert a disk with an operating system to be loaded.
Let me know how this goes.
Regards,
Ralph
I would temporarily disconnect the CDROM from the data cable and set the hard drive configuration jumper/s for "single drive" setting. (As opposed to "master w/slave present")
Your problem is probably due to the way the 40-pin data cable is installed.
Check that you have the cable oriented correctly. There should be a colored stripe on one edge of the cable. This stripe is positioned next to pin-1 of the connector at each end. On the hard drive, pin-1 is usually located on the side of it's 40-pin socket nearest the power connector. At the motherboard or I/O interface card, look for the numeral "1" written on the board at one end of its 40-pin IDE socket or header. (A header is the double row of pins that the cable connector plugs onto) There should be some way to identify the pin-1 location. Sometimes it is a small square mark printed on the board. If nothing can be seen, check the location of any other cables that may be installed. They are usually all oriented in the same direction.
This done, check your CMOS setup to be sure the hard drive settings are configured properly.
The computer should boot now, or at least ask you to insert a disk with an operating system to be loaded.
Let me know how this goes.
Regards,
Ralph
ASKER
I don't know exactly what you mean about turning the M-board over and reseatting the cable? I've looked at the cable and the pins on the M-board. All the pins are the same height and looking at the pins and female plug, there is only one way they will mate. The M-board has one pin missing (first row from front, 3rd pin from left; the cable has all open pin holes except there is a block where the missing 3rd pin would go. This to me is an idication that it would only fit one way. Appearantly there should be no connection here.
I've reseated the cables several tims, ensuring a good seat.
I've reseated the cables several tims, ensuring a good seat.
Okay on the keyed M/B connector. (Mistake-proof!)
How about the hard drive end of the cable?
Is its connector keyed as well?
If so, and you're using the same cable as before, cabling can't be the problem.
Is the hard drive configuration correctly set in your CMOS setup screen?
Ralph
How about the hard drive end of the cable?
Is its connector keyed as well?
If so, and you're using the same cable as before, cabling can't be the problem.
Is the hard drive configuration correctly set in your CMOS setup screen?
Ralph
am I right:
1. before installing the CD-ROM everything was ok
2. you installed a CD-ROM and HD was not accesible any more
3. you disconnected CD-ROM and HD is still not accesible
What HD are you using ?
FYI, I had a Western Digital HD and I had to remove ALL the jumpers (didn't like it to JUMPER it as master) to make it master (while a slave device was connected to same cable)
BTW, what does this mean "4 clicks" on start ?
I changed my HD a few weeks ago coz the "clicks" indicated defective heads !!!
WD drives love to do this =;-))
I'll wait for info.
Regards
-Stavi-
http://bvlab12.fh-reutlingen.de