[ksmall1998]

I apologize in advance for this lengthy request.

A friend's computer recently stopped working. When it would boot up, it would go thru the splash screen and then show the message " No operating system found."

I did everything I know to do....check snd reseat cables, swap cables, look for obvious damage, but it still would not boot. At this point I thought the drive was bad.

I have a new drive installed with the supplied cable. I tried to run the Maxtor Maxblast software to get the drive ready, but now the CD drive will not work. It seems that the drive is not recognized by the system. A message comes on boot, stating that the CD-Rom is missing or not installed. I made a floppy from the Maxtor disc....the floppy still does work......hoping I could run the Maxblast from the floppy. The software loads, but it says that A Maxtor drive is not installed.

When I boot the computer, the small indicator light on the front of the CD never lights up...........so I now I wonder if the hard drive and the CD drive are getting any power at all? But if the floppy is working, wouldn't this mean that power should be at the other 2 drives as well?

Any ideas would helpful......Thanks

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Hi,

Are the hdd and the cd on seperate Ide channels? (cables)

If they are not then it sounds like the drives are not getting power.
I guess it is possible with a flaky psu for the said drives not to get power and the floppy to get power

To check for this try different power plugs comming from the psu if there are spares.

If not and you have a volt meter unplug the drives start the computer and go into bios and let the computer idle, check the yellow and black wirers from the connecters that were on the drives you should get anywere from 11.5v to 12.5v.

If it is not within this range I would replace the psu

Please answer my first question cause it is possible to have a bad ide channel.

Rick

[Doby]

Hi,

Are the hdd and the cd on seperate Ide channels? (cables)

If they are not then it sounds like the drives are not getting power.
I guess it is possible with a flaky psu for the said drives not to get power and the floppy to get power

To check for this try different power plugs comming from the psu if there are spares.

If not and you have a volt meter unplug the drives start the computer and go into bios and let the computer idle, check the yellow and black wirers from the connecters that were on the drives you should get anywere from 11.5v to 12.5v.

If it is not within this range I would replace the psu

Please answer my first question cause it is possible to have a bad ide channel.

Rick

[ksmall1998]

Thanks Rick,

The HDD and CD are on seperate connectors from the mother board. Could both connectors be bad? My friend recently changed the modem because of lightning....maybe damaged to the motherboard is just starting to show

I checked the voltage from different plugs and got 11.7 from yellow to black and 6.9 from red to black.

Mark

[bdlt]

The power supply reading on the red wire is high - it should be closer to 5 V. You might remeasure it after disconnecting both cables from the CD and both cables from the HD. Check your current cable configuration before disconnecting the cables. For most devices, the red wire from the power supply connecter is adjacent to the red stripe on the other cable. If the wider cable is reversed, neither device will work. The red stripe on the wider cable is pin 1 and may be marked as such on the mother board, on the CD, and on the HD.

[Doby]

Well this is a tuff one to call because of the lightning, but bdlt is right the red wirer is high and could have harmed the drives, I would try the drives in another computer, then replace the psu.

I doubt both ide channels are bad but with lightning or a overvolt its hard to tell if the mobo is damaged, lets hope not.

Rick