Jim Lawrence
accessd at shaw.ca
Sun Jul 6 10:37:43 CDT 2008
To be honest I do not think so.
For someone to make a major error it would require a lot careful planning and playing with the parts well outside the confines of hooking up a hard-drive. The only major changes in home PCs, in the last little while, when it comes to hard drives is the new SATA type drives and as you have explained, I do not think that is the case.
Checking would be just fine.
First, make sure you have the power turned off and once the computer is opened place both your hands on the exposed metal box frame. This is to discharge any possible static charge you may have.
Most boxes just require the loosening or removal of two Phillips type screws and then sliding the side off. (The side on the left hand side as you are looking at the computer.) When the computer is laid down you should see the HD at the front of the computer mounted on brackets. From the back of the HD you should be a power supply cable attached and a 32 pin IDE ribbon cable.
The power cable is one of the cables that comes from the power supply at the back of the computer and the end that connects to the hard drive is a nylon/plastic plug.. This plug can only connect in one way as there are tapered edges on top of both sides of the plug. This plug can sometime be difficult to remove but by gently wiggling it from side to side while pulling it out should be all the force necessary. The plug has a little flanges which allow easy grip.
The other cable from the back of the hard drive, is a 32 pin flat IDE cable which is attached to the mother board. Both ends of this cable are the same, so it can not be put the wrong way around and there are notches in the cable ends so it can not be inserted upside down. The only other wrinkle is when there is two connectors on one end of this cable. A cable like that can be used for connecting two hard drives if available and the best way to hook this cable up is to connect the multi-connector end to the hard drives. If there were two hard drives drives, the connector, at the cable end would connect to the boot drive and connector within the cable would connect to the second or data drive. (I do not think you would have this configuration so I will not continue any further explanation along dual drives at this time.)
Once the IDE flat cable is connected, in the male connector on the mother board and the male connector, on the HD (Watch that the notches at each of the cable and connectors line up.), then connect the female power supply plug to the power connector on the back of the hard drive.
Make sure all cables are secure. When disconnecting and re-connecting cables sometimes other unrelated cables may become loosened so it is wise to make sure every cable is firm.
After that the box cover can be replaced and the computer can be restarted. In most cases the rebooted system will automatically see the new hardware and continue with the reboot and assuming that the drive you have just re-cabled, is the boot drive the system should now boot up with out incident.
I apologize for this very long winded explanation but I wanted to make sure there was absolutely no confusion. In the unlikely event there are some issues, they can be dealt with as needed.
Jim
----- Original Message -----
From: Susan Harkins <ssharkins at gmail.com>
Date: Sunday, July 6, 2008 7:07 am
Subject: Re: [dba-Tech] Windows won't reboot
To: Discussion of Hardware and Software issues <dba-tech at databaseadvisors.com>
> If he were to check himself -- just open the case and make sure
> what's
> connected is in deed a good connection -- is there a chance he
> could screw
> something up?
>
> Susan H.
>
>
> > Moving a hard drive from one computer to another is actually
> one of the
> > easiest things to do. There is only one cable that has to be
> connected
> > (excluding the power supply cable which is a no brainer) and
> you can not
> > even put the connections in backwards as there is a tab which
> stops that.
> >
> > The only other way to screw up a single drive move is if you
> do not check
> > that the cables are firmly, in place and again there is no way
> to screw
> > that up either as there is no other connectors that could confuse.
> >
> > If you can plug in a coffee pot you can plug in a moved hard
> drive. ;-)
> >
> > Jim
> >
> > ----- Original Message -----
> > From: Gary Kjos <garykjos at gmail.com>
> > Date: Saturday, July 5, 2008 4:59 pm
> > Subject: Re: [dba-Tech] Windows won't reboot
> > To: Discussion of Hardware and Software issues
> > <dba-tech at databaseadvisors.com>
> >
> >> Close enough isn't close enough in this case. If the bios
> >> doesn't see
> >> it the operating system isn't going to either. Seems like trouble
> >> waiting to happen moving a hard drive from system to system.
> >>
> >> GK
> >>
> >> On Sat, Jul 5, 2008 at 7:50 AM, Susan Harkins
> >> <ssharkins at gmail.com> wrote:
> >> > I checked on it last night and I'm sure the guy didn't hook it
> >> up right --
> >> > it even says so, just before it displays the message to
> >> replace disk and hit
> >> > any key. Unfortunately, I was unable to help. I need to
> take a
> >> class or
> >> > something -- it's ridiculous that I'm such a wienie where
> hardware's>> > concerned.
> >> >
> >> > Susan H.
> >> >
> >> >
> >> >> And perhaps also to hit Delete or F8 or whatever it is on
> >> that model to go
> >> >> into BIOS setup and see what the system thinks is attached.
> >> >
> >> > _______________________________________________
> >> > dba-Tech mailing list
> >> > dba-Tech at databaseadvisors.com
> >> > http://databaseadvisors.com/mailman/listinfo/dba-tech
> >> > Website: http://www.databaseadvisors.com
> >> >
> >>
> >>
> >>
> >> --
> >> Gary Kjos
> >> garykjos at gmail.com
> >> _______________________________________________
> >> dba-Tech mailing list
> >> dba-Tech at databaseadvisors.com
> >> http://databaseadvisors.com/mailman/listinfo/dba-tech
> >> Website: http://www.databaseadvisors.com
> >>
> > _______________________________________________
> > dba-Tech mailing list
> > dba-Tech at databaseadvisors.com
> > http://databaseadvisors.com/mailman/listinfo/dba-tech
> > Website: http://www.databaseadvisors.com
>
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