604shizzle

hey guys i have a Barracuda 7200.10 Ultra ATA/100 500-GB Hard Drive hooked up to my comp which is about 4yrs old and the hd itself was bought 7months ago. I have this as my primary and my old 40gb as the secondary. I installed a graphics card and a sound card a few days ago and since then the hd wont work.

If I have the HD connected to the comp, the comp will not turn on. When you hit the power button nothing happens. We tried setting the HD as a slave but that didnt work either. Then we discovered that if we disconnected the HD from the comp, then the comp would work.

I removed the seagate and am now using my old 40gb HD. Any idea what happen to my hard drive?

tosh9i

Do you think you might be using to much power?

What type of power supply do you have?

Snoopdogie187

This seems to probably be a PSU problem. With a new graphics card, sound card and hard drive installed now it is probably drawing more power then the PSU can put out.

What you should do is list your system specs (what graphics card, video card, PSU, etc, how many cd rom drives) just anything that takes power from the PSU and someone else can help determine if your PSU is good enough or if not then they can help find one that is.

If you bought this computer from a store (like its a dell, hp, sony, etc.) and it as on board graphics and video then you should disconect everything you added till you know you have a PSU that can handle it otherwise you risk damaging something. Most computers can only support what they came with.

604shizzle

OKIA switching power supply
model 420ATX 420watt max

tosh9i

Like Snoopdogie187 said, we're going to need the specs of your computer

download and install everest:

http://www.majorgeeks.com/download4181.html

604shizzle

Its a no name pc i had made. it came with a 40gb hd, 256mb ram and a LG dvd burner. The mb is asrock k7s41gx. I upgraded by adding the 500gb hd, removing the old ram and replacing it with 2 sticks of 1gig ram. I also just a few days ago added a diamond radeon ati 2600 video card and a diamond xtreme sound 7.1/24bit sound card.

tosh9i

Fill this out and tell us the results:

http://www.journeysystems.com/?powercalc

604shizzle

I came to 302 watts but i wasnt too sure about some parts. I have the AMD athlon xp 2400+ processor. My video card wasnt listed so i selected the closest one. I dont know what a scsi controller card is.

604shizzle

Ok so i disconnected the old 40gb hard drive and then reconnected the seagate. So i only had 1 hd hooked up. When i attached the seagate and hit the power button, the fans would move for just a second and then nothing. I unplugged the comp and then plugged it back in and hit the power button and it did the same thing.

Then i removed the seagate and reconnected my old hd, and the comp powered up normally.

tosh9i

I don't know if this will do anything, but try unplugging your cd and/or dvd drive from the PSU and see what happens.

604shizzle

just remove the ata cable thing and the power cable? and leave the hd attached?

shud i also try doing that with only the seagate attached?

tosh9i

yes, only the seagate. The point is to help determine whether or not it is a psu issue. I'd prefer removing the network card and sound card, but unplugging the cd/dvd should be good enough, I hope. Basically, we're reducing the power consumption.

604shizzle

im tryin this hd on a different pc now. we are going to disconnect all the drives and connect only the seagate and see if this works.

so far we tried connecting the seagate and disconnecting the cd drive, and the computer would not power up and there is no sound or video cards on this pc.

604shizzle

any other suggestions guys? i really would like to get this hard drive working rather than exchange it under warranty

Snoopdogie187

if you tried it on a different computer and it did the same there may be in internal short inside the HD.

604shizzle

my cuzin jus tested it on his pc and had the same problem. His comp is basically the same build as mine, but he has no video or sounds cards or any extra pci devices.

If I have to exchange the hd for a new one, will anyone be able to access the data i have stored? Theres alot of personal info i dont want anybody to have.

Snoopdogie187

unforantly the only way to get the data i think will be to void the warrenty.. i think for how it is, you have to take the hard drive out of the case and find another way to turn th hard drve and get the head to read it, or find a place that may b able to do it and see if they can without voiding warrenty.

604shizzle

im gonna tkae it to the place i bought it from tomorw and see if they can fix it. if not i guess i will have to exchange it for another one. :(

Snoopdogie187

well best of luck to you and sorry if they can't fix it. Maybe check for a plave that does offical Seagate repairs mght work

604shizzle

I tried one other thing. I plugged in the hd and connected only the power cable, the pc wouldnt power on. Then i plugged in only the ata cable and the pc would power on and go to the black screen and say boot failure.