[jek1862]

I just put in a new hard drive. I had 120gb, but wanted more space, so put in a 320. I also was recently getting some strange error messages upon bootup that was causing me to think there might be a problem with the 120, since it was a refurbished, not new, drive. Sometimes, it wouldn't allow me to get to the log in screen, sometimes it would...in a word, very 'inconsistent'.
I don't have the wording of the error message right now....if it comes up again(I hope it doesn't), I will include it in a subsequent posting as it may give more information as to what may be wrong.
I've had the 320 in for about 5 days and haven't gotten the error message I was getting with the 120, making me think it was the old hard drive. I did do a chkdsk /f and a chkdsk /r and both came up no problems, so I wasn't sure.
But, unfortunately, when I booted up today, those same strange messages came up with the 320. I decided to take a look inside my machine to see if I could 'see anything' out of the ordinary. Well, all the wires looked okay, but I DID notice a 'tear' in part of the ribbon(I have a desktop IDE hard drive, about 5 year old Dell computer). This may be the cause of my problem. What do you think? If there is a 'tear' in that 'ribbon' what might happen? I have no idea how it tore. It's not a real bad tear, but noticeable.
So I reconnected my hard drive to the other place inside you can connect a drive. This ribbon looks intact. So far no problem, or error messages. Was this a wise, logical thing to do? What diagnostics should I run? I already ran the chkdsks, I don't know what else to do, other than hope by connecting my hard drive to the other place for an internal drive, that it may bypass the ribbon that is 'torn'. I would tend to think it would.
Any thoughts or advice would be appreciated. Thanks.

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Since you have verified the faulty ribbon I would say just replace the ribbon with a known good one or a new one.
You did a good job of diagnosing and investigating on your side.
If you want to be sure do the following on the old drive and see what the results show. Make sure you are using a good ribbon when doing the diagnostics.
Run hard drive diagnostics: http://www.tacktech....ay.cfm?ttid=287
Make sure, you select tool, which is appropriate for the brand of your hard drive.
Depending on the program, it'll create bootable floppy, or bootable CD.
If downloaded file is of .iso type, use ImgBurn: http://www.imgburn.com/ to burn .iso file to a CD (select "Write image file to disc" option), and make the CD bootable.

NOTE. If your hard drive is made by Toshiba, unfortunately, you're out of luck, because Toshiba doesn't provide any diagnostic tool.

Thanks to Broni for the instructions

[rshaffer61]

Since you have verified the faulty ribbon I would say just replace the ribbon with a known good one or a new one.
You did a good job of diagnosing and investigating on your side.
If you want to be sure do the following on the old drive and see what the results show. Make sure you are using a good ribbon when doing the diagnostics.
Run hard drive diagnostics: http://www.tacktech....ay.cfm?ttid=287
Make sure, you select tool, which is appropriate for the brand of your hard drive.
Depending on the program, it'll create bootable floppy, or bootable CD.
If downloaded file is of .iso type, use ImgBurn: http://www.imgburn.com/ to burn .iso file to a CD (select "Write image file to disc" option), and make the CD bootable.

NOTE. If your hard drive is made by Toshiba, unfortunately, you're out of luck, because Toshiba doesn't provide any diagnostic tool.

Thanks to Broni for the instructions

[jek1862]

Thanks for your reply friend. I've had the hard drive connected to the other connectors inside my computer and have had no problems whatsoever since I did it. Apparently, the tear in the ribbon is causing some kind of a problem. I plan to get it replaced eventually, since I've heard it is cheap and relatively easy to install.
I did however run the diagnostic you suggested. My results were PASS on both the Smart Status and on the test itself, so I was happy, of course to see that my hard drive is okay.
One thing I'd like you to comment on. I have a 320gb hard drive. It says I can access 298 of it. This diagnostic utility reports I have 294gb free, yet my computer says I have 274gb free. Why the 20gb difference? I don't see how I can have 294 free, since the Vista Operating system takes up around 10gb I believe, so the most I could have without anything installed would be around 288, right? Please educate me on this, if you would.
Until I get any error messages or experience any future problems I will just leave the hard drive connected to the other connections. Thank you for your help.

[rshaffer61]

The difference you are seeing is due to the way a drive is actually calculated in space.
Even a new drive freshly formatted and nothing installed will nto show the total actual advertised drive space. In your case a 320 gig drive would probably show 15 to 20 gigs less then advertised. Then add in your OS at 10 gigs and you can see how the space shows so much less.