Not Booting - Possibly IDE shorting

B_Jammin · 11-20-2006, 11:30 AM

I am having a problem on our family's Dell computer. I swapped out the CD Drive as I need it in another computer real quick and when I put it back in I get this problem written below.

The Problem:
When the IDE cable is plugged into my CD-Drive it will not open as if it has no power to it. However, when the IDE cable is unplugged and only the power cable is plugged into it, it opens and closes fine.

Also, it does not recognize the hard drive since I put the CD Drive back in. I have tried different IDE cables. Also, I have hooked up the hard drive to a different computer and it works fine. So I know it is not the hard drive at fault. Is it possible that somehow my IDE slots on the motherboard are shorting out my drives? I really hope not as it would be a big pain to get a whole new MB. I also can hear the hard drive spinning when both the IDE and power cables are plugged in but it give me the "no boot disk" screen as if there is no hard drive connected. Also, the jumpers and location of the drive on the cable is as it should be. Any suggestions would be appreciated. Thanks.

**Done_Fishin** · 11-20-2006, 01:30 PM

Hi there
first question , are your IDE cables able to be plugged into your drives regardless of direction?
Normally the iDE connectors are "keyed" so that they can only be plugged in with the coloured wire, on one side, toward the power connector. Is this how your cable is connected? or can it be connected with the cable mounted upside down?
Did you change any settings to the jumper configuration when you removed it?
Is it the being put back in the PC that you borrowed it from or the one you want to lend it to?

B_Jammin · 11-20-2006, 03:08 PM

Thanks for the reply.
Yes, the IDE cables are keyed and they are plugged in correctly.
I did not change any jumper settings.
It is being put back into the PC that I originally took it from. Both the CD Drive and the hard drive work fine in other PCs.

**Done_Fishin** · 11-20-2006, 03:43 PM

make sure that the cables are pushed firmly into the motherboard, if they are the newer style make sure that they are also plugged in the correct way. some newer cables are colour coded blue at one end black at the other. The black end should go to the cd/hdd whilst the blue end goes in the motherboard. Sometimes there is a 0 & 1 or mastre slave printed on the cables. these are for the drives.

B_Jammin · 11-20-2006, 04:32 PM

All the cables are connected securely and correctly. That is why it makes me think it's the motherboard, which would really be annoying.

**Done_Fishin** · 11-20-2006, 05:01 PM

it doesn't seem logical that by removing a CD ROM your motherboard dies.
also if you changed nothing then the HDD should still be recognised.
Please double check that the jumpers are in Master (HDD) and Slave (CD) if they sit on the same IDE. The only other alternative would be that athey are both in CS mode but then the IDE MUST be CS compatable, with either a pin missing around or a cutout inthe cable towards the side that has no colour.Do not confuse the blanked out pin in the centre with the missing pin

B_Jammin · 11-20-2006, 05:40 PM

Yes, I have checked to make sure all the pins are there and in good condition, which they are.

You are right, and this is why it has been annoying me so much. There seems to be no logical reason why my IDE drives would stop working just by removing and replacing a CD Drive. Is it possible that ESD could travel down the IDE cables and damage the ports? That is about the only thing I can think of, even though I am careful to try and ground myself on the computer case all the time.

**Done_Fishin** · 11-21-2006, 02:10 AM

This is one of those occasions where I wish I were on site to take a look at what is going on .
about ESD, yes it's always possible, it's alos possible that prior to your obtaining the system that someone has touched something they shouldn't have when not being grounded. Effects of ESD may shown up immediately or after an hour or after 10 years ..
Certainly with all that you have said, the indications are that the mobo has died. The only other thing I can suggest right now is remove the motherboard and try to test it out sitting on a block of wood. Shake it thouroughly after removal just in case a screw got lodged inthere somewhere and might fall out.
You have tried everything else .. except that maybe in BIOS the IDE has accidentallly been disabled!! try disabling, reboot, enable, reboot to force it.

chauffeur2 · 11-21-2006, 02:25 AM

One thought....Is the IDE ribbon an 80 wire or 40 wire?

I have seen many situations where the 40 wired ribbons just malfunction; so I would suggest that if this is the case [that you have a 40 wired Ribbon] replace it with an 80 wired Ribbon.

**Done_Fishin** · 11-21-2006, 02:37 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by chauffeur2

One thought....Is the IDE ribbon an 80 wire or 40 wire?

I have seen many situations where the 40 wired ribbons just malfunction; so I would suggest that if this is the case [that you have a 40 wired Ribbon] replace it with an 80 wired Ribbon.

Quote:

Originally Posted by B_Jammin

I am having a problem on our family's Dell computer. I swapped out the CD Drive as I need it in another computer real quick and when I put it back in I get this problem written below.

The Problem:
When the IDE cable is plugged into my CD-Drive it will not open as if it has no power to it. However, when the IDE cable is unplugged and only the power cable is plugged into it, it opens and closes fine.

Also, it does not recognize the hard drive since I put the CD Drive back in. I have tried different IDE cables. Also, I have hooked up the hard drive to a different computer and it works fine. So I know it is not the hard drive at fault. Is it possible that somehow my IDE slots on the motherboard are shorting out my drives? I really hope not as it would be a big pain to get a whole new MB. I also can hear the hard drive spinning when both the IDE and power cables are plugged in but it give me the "no boot disk" screen as if there is no hard drive connected. Also, the jumpers and location of the drive on the cable is as it should be. Any suggestions would be appreciated. Thanks.

Unfortunately I think that's been covered,
Dell are really wierd when it comes to their systems. I have even heard of Dell equipment not taking NON-DELL peripherals like keyboards etc insisting that it must be their own. I think it was my ex-supervisor that found it out the hard way!

chauffeur2 · 11-21-2006, 03:06 AM

Sorry...I missed that.

**Done_Fishin** · 11-21-2006, 05:02 AM

Not to worry,

so did I and I had toi keep going back to re-read what had been written.

I am wondering, if the hdd is left unconnected, mount the CD ROM, change boot sequence to boot from CD (in BIOS), place windows Boot CD in ROM, Does the system boot?
Check that HDD's are set to "auto" in BIOS, or you could try for an auto search. Because apart from the illogical idea that the mobo interface is dead , it could be switched off. Also try putting the HDD on the other IDE. on its own!

B_Jammin · 11-21-2006, 07:54 AM

Well, I went to boot up the PC this morning to try the idea of disabling the IDE controller, rebooting, and then enabling again. However, when I got into BIOS I noticed that it actually detected the hard drive. I was like what the heck?! So I go and try to boot up only to get the same thing ("No Boot Disk"). So I then go back into BIOS and see that the boot sequence was all set to LAN and Floppy. So I change number 1 to Hard Disk and it boots up perfectly.

The really weird thing is that I did nothing different to make it work. And I know for a fact that it wasn't detecting either IDE drive in the BIOS and this morning it suddenly did. I really I have no idea what happened, but thanks for your guys' help.

Now of course this is without the CD Drive installed as I was doing most of my testing without it, thinking somehow that is the problem. I am going to try and put the CD Drive back in and I will let you know how it goes.

**Done_Fishin** · 11-21-2006, 08:21 AM

That's the wierd thing about BIOS settings, they stay static for years and then one day we find that somethings changed but we NEVER did it!!

it's all to do with the way that power is supplied to the board. If the supplies values change drastically for some unknown reason it can cause the saved "charge", inside the memory that has stored it, to look different.
The memory stores a Voltage inside it to indicate a 0 or 1.
If suddenly the supplied voltage to the chip increases then the stored charge looks less, so logically it looks OFF or 0.
If the supplied voltage to the chip decreases then it looks more so it appears logically as ON or 1

look at this VERY SIMPLE (maybe oversimplified) diagram

the vertical direction is the Voltage from the supply
the red line is the charge inside the IC
the grey lines are the upper and lower boundaries of tolerance for determing whether a charge is false true or in no mans land!
The blue diagonal is what the Voltage from the supply COULD be .

when the blue line is low, the red line is considered to be logical 1
when the blue line is high the red line is considered to be logical 0
Since the grey lines will also shift proportinally with the blue line there will be a time when the logic level could be either a 0 or a 1
the red line is static because it is like a small battery inside the chip that should never lose its value unless someone specifically defines that the value should change.

like I said it's greatly oversimplified .. but you'll get the idea. That;s why it's so critical to have stable, noise free (electrically) power supply rails.

B_Jammin · 11-21-2006, 10:21 AM

Alright, well I got the CD drive hooked back up and everything works fine now. Thanks again for your help.

Also, thanks for the info, I do get the basic picture from that graph. I still don't understand completely why it would do that, but I guess I'll just be glad it's working now. And that graph does give me somewhat of an idea as to why the PC might of acted up now so illogically.

11-20-2006, 11:30 AM	#1 (permalink)
B_Jammin Registered User Join Date: Dec 2005 Location: Buffalo, NY Posts: 16 OS: XP Professional Edition SP2 My System	Not Booting - Possibly IDE shorting I am having a problem on our family's Dell computer. I swapped out the CD Drive as I need it in another computer real quick and when I put it back in I get this problem written below. The Problem: When the IDE cable is plugged into my CD-Drive it will not open as if it has no power to it. However, when the IDE cable is unplugged and only the power cable is plugged into it, it opens and closes fine. Also, it does not recognize the hard drive since I put the CD Drive back in. I have tried different IDE cables. Also, I have hooked up the hard drive to a different computer and it works fine. So I know it is not the hard drive at fault. Is it possible that somehow my IDE slots on the motherboard are shorting out my drives? I really hope not as it would be a big pain to get a whole new MB. I also can hear the hard drive spinning when both the IDE and power cables are plugged in but it give me the "no boot disk" screen as if there is no hard drive connected. Also, the jumpers and location of the drive on the cable is as it should be. Any suggestions would be appreciated. Thanks.

11-20-2006, 01:30 PM	#2 (permalink)
Done_Fishin Moderator Hardware Team Join Date: Oct 2006 Location: Brit living in Greece Posts: 6,533 OS: WinME, WinXP Pro SP3, Win7 Beta, Ubuntu 9.04 & Netbook Remix & CD2USB, Mepis 6.5, Fedora 10 My System	Hi there first question , are your IDE cables able to be plugged into your drives regardless of direction? Normally the iDE connectors are "keyed" so that they can only be plugged in with the coloured wire, on one side, toward the power connector. Is this how your cable is connected? or can it be connected with the cable mounted upside down? Did you change any settings to the jumper configuration when you removed it? Is it the being put back in the PC that you borrowed it from or the one you want to lend it to? __________________ . . I'm not old!! I'm age impaired .. D_F How to mark your thread as solved HDD DIAG UTILS TSF's Photographer's Corner

11-20-2006, 03:43 PM	#4 (permalink)
Done_Fishin Moderator Hardware Team Join Date: Oct 2006 Location: Brit living in Greece Posts: 6,533 OS: WinME, WinXP Pro SP3, Win7 Beta, Ubuntu 9.04 & Netbook Remix & CD2USB, Mepis 6.5, Fedora 10 My System	make sure that the cables are pushed firmly into the motherboard, if they are the newer style make sure that they are also plugged in the correct way. some newer cables are colour coded blue at one end black at the other. The black end should go to the cd/hdd whilst the blue end goes in the motherboard. Sometimes there is a 0 & 1 or mastre slave printed on the cables. these are for the drives. __________________ . . I'm not old!! I'm age impaired .. D_F How to mark your thread as solved HDD DIAG UTILS TSF's Photographer's Corner

11-20-2006, 05:01 PM	#6 (permalink)
Done_Fishin Moderator Hardware Team Join Date: Oct 2006 Location: Brit living in Greece Posts: 6,533 OS: WinME, WinXP Pro SP3, Win7 Beta, Ubuntu 9.04 & Netbook Remix & CD2USB, Mepis 6.5, Fedora 10 My System	it doesn't seem logical that by removing a CD ROM your motherboard dies. also if you changed nothing then the HDD should still be recognised. Please double check that the jumpers are in Master (HDD) and Slave (CD) if they sit on the same IDE. The only other alternative would be that athey are both in CS mode but then the IDE MUST be CS compatable, with either a pin missing around or a cutout inthe cable towards the side that has no colour.Do not confuse the blanked out pin in the centre with the missing pin __________________ . . I'm not old!! I'm age impaired .. D_F How to mark your thread as solved HDD DIAG UTILS TSF's Photographer's Corner

11-21-2006, 02:10 AM	#8 (permalink)
Done_Fishin Moderator Hardware Team Join Date: Oct 2006 Location: Brit living in Greece Posts: 6,533 OS: WinME, WinXP Pro SP3, Win7 Beta, Ubuntu 9.04 & Netbook Remix & CD2USB, Mepis 6.5, Fedora 10 My System	This is one of those occasions where I wish I were on site to take a look at what is going on . about ESD, yes it's always possible, it's alos possible that prior to your obtaining the system that someone has touched something they shouldn't have when not being grounded. Effects of ESD may shown up immediately or after an hour or after 10 years .. Certainly with all that you have said, the indications are that the mobo has died. The only other thing I can suggest right now is remove the motherboard and try to test it out sitting on a block of wood. Shake it thouroughly after removal just in case a screw got lodged inthere somewhere and might fall out. You have tried everything else .. except that maybe in BIOS the IDE has accidentallly been disabled!! try disabling, reboot, enable, reboot to force it. __________________ . . I'm not old!! I'm age impaired .. D_F How to mark your thread as solved HDD DIAG UTILS TSF's Photographer's Corner

11-20-2006, 03:08 PM	#3 (permalink)
B_Jammin Registered User Join Date: Dec 2005 Location: Buffalo, NY Posts: 16 OS: XP Professional Edition SP2 My System	Thanks for the reply. Yes, the IDE cables are keyed and they are plugged in correctly. I did not change any jumper settings. It is being put back into the PC that I originally took it from. Both the CD Drive and the hard drive work fine in other PCs.

11-20-2006, 04:32 PM	#5 (permalink)
B_Jammin Registered User Join Date: Dec 2005 Location: Buffalo, NY Posts: 16 OS: XP Professional Edition SP2 My System	All the cables are connected securely and correctly. That is why it makes me think it's the motherboard, which would really be annoying.

11-20-2006, 05:40 PM	#7 (permalink)
B_Jammin Registered User Join Date: Dec 2005 Location: Buffalo, NY Posts: 16 OS: XP Professional Edition SP2 My System	Yes, I have checked to make sure all the pins are there and in good condition, which they are. You are right, and this is why it has been annoying me so much. There seems to be no logical reason why my IDE drives would stop working just by removing and replacing a CD Drive. Is it possible that ESD could travel down the IDE cables and damage the ports? That is about the only thing I can think of, even though I am careful to try and ground myself on the computer case all the time.

11-21-2006, 02:25 AM	#9 (permalink)
chauffeur2 Manager Emeritus Join Date: Feb 2006 Location: Adelaide, South Australia Posts: 10,180 OS: Xp Sp3 with all updates + Vista™ Ultimate SP1. My System	One thought....Is the IDE ribbon an 80 wire or 40 wire? I have seen many situations where the 40 wired ribbons just malfunction; so I would suggest that if this is the case [that you have a 40 wired Ribbon] replace it with an 80 wired Ribbon. __________________ Dave T. Submit New Articles If it works, Don't fix it! Especially if Bill Gates had anything to do with it!! Last edited by chauffeur2; 11-21-2006 at 02:27 AM.

11-21-2006, 03:06 AM	#11 (permalink)
chauffeur2 Manager Emeritus Join Date: Feb 2006 Location: Adelaide, South Australia Posts: 10,180 OS: Xp Sp3 with all updates + Vista™ Ultimate SP1. My System	Sorry...I missed that. __________________ Dave T. Submit New Articles If it works, Don't fix it! Especially if Bill Gates had anything to do with it!!

11-21-2006, 05:02 AM	#12 (permalink)
Done_Fishin Moderator Hardware Team Join Date: Oct 2006 Location: Brit living in Greece Posts: 6,533 OS: WinME, WinXP Pro SP3, Win7 Beta, Ubuntu 9.04 & Netbook Remix & CD2USB, Mepis 6.5, Fedora 10 My System	Not to worry, so did I and I had toi keep going back to re-read what had been written. I am wondering, if the hdd is left unconnected, mount the CD ROM, change boot sequence to boot from CD (in BIOS), place windows Boot CD in ROM, Does the system boot? Check that HDD's are set to "auto" in BIOS, or you could try for an auto search. Because apart from the illogical idea that the mobo interface is dead , it could be switched off. Also try putting the HDD on the other IDE. on its own! __________________ . . I'm not old!! I'm age impaired .. D_F How to mark your thread as solved HDD DIAG UTILS TSF's Photographer's Corner

11-21-2006, 07:54 AM	#13 (permalink)
B_Jammin Registered User Join Date: Dec 2005 Location: Buffalo, NY Posts: 16 OS: XP Professional Edition SP2 My System	Well, I went to boot up the PC this morning to try the idea of disabling the IDE controller, rebooting, and then enabling again. However, when I got into BIOS I noticed that it actually detected the hard drive. I was like what the heck?! So I go and try to boot up only to get the same thing ("No Boot Disk"). So I then go back into BIOS and see that the boot sequence was all set to LAN and Floppy. So I change number 1 to Hard Disk and it boots up perfectly. The really weird thing is that I did nothing different to make it work. And I know for a fact that it wasn't detecting either IDE drive in the BIOS and this morning it suddenly did. I really I have no idea what happened, but thanks for your guys' help. Now of course this is without the CD Drive installed as I was doing most of my testing without it, thinking somehow that is the problem. I am going to try and put the CD Drive back in and I will let you know how it goes. Last edited by B_Jammin; 11-21-2006 at 07:55 AM.

11-21-2006, 08:21 AM	#14 (permalink)
Done_Fishin Moderator Hardware Team Join Date: Oct 2006 Location: Brit living in Greece Posts: 6,533 OS: WinME, WinXP Pro SP3, Win7 Beta, Ubuntu 9.04 & Netbook Remix & CD2USB, Mepis 6.5, Fedora 10 My System	That's the wierd thing about BIOS settings, they stay static for years and then one day we find that somethings changed but we NEVER did it!! it's all to do with the way that power is supplied to the board. If the supplies values change drastically for some unknown reason it can cause the saved "charge", inside the memory that has stored it, to look different. The memory stores a Voltage inside it to indicate a 0 or 1. If suddenly the supplied voltage to the chip increases then the stored charge looks less, so logically it looks OFF or 0. If the supplied voltage to the chip decreases then it looks more so it appears logically as ON or 1 look at this VERY SIMPLE (maybe oversimplified) diagram the vertical direction is the Voltage from the supply the red line is the charge inside the IC the grey lines are the upper and lower boundaries of tolerance for determing whether a charge is false true or in no mans land! The blue diagonal is what the Voltage from the supply COULD be . when the blue line is low, the red line is considered to be logical 1 when the blue line is high the red line is considered to be logical 0 Since the grey lines will also shift proportinally with the blue line there will be a time when the logic level could be either a 0 or a 1 the red line is static because it is like a small battery inside the chip that should never lose its value unless someone specifically defines that the value should change. like I said it's greatly oversimplified .. but you'll get the idea. That;s why it's so critical to have stable, noise free (electrically) power supply rails. __________________ . . I'm not old!! I'm age impaired .. D_F How to mark your thread as solved HDD DIAG UTILS TSF's Photographer's Corner Last edited by Done_Fishin; 11-21-2006 at 08:24 AM.

11-21-2006, 10:21 AM	#15 (permalink)
B_Jammin Registered User Join Date: Dec 2005 Location: Buffalo, NY Posts: 16 OS: XP Professional Edition SP2 My System	Alright, well I got the CD drive hooked back up and everything works fine now. Thanks again for your help. Also, thanks for the info, I do get the basic picture from that graph. I still don't understand completely why it would do that, but I guess I'll just be glad it's working now. And that graph does give me somewhat of an idea as to why the PC might of acted up now so illogically.