Computer Genius Needed !

[Sheik]

Alright here is my story and I will be extremely impressed if anyone can give me any insight ...

So I have a harddrive that I wanted to put Windows XP on (the hardrive had no current OS) and I couldn't get to work so I figured I would simply connect that hardrive to my other computer. I hooked it up to the Slave lines and the P3 power line (I put my Master hardriveon the P2 line). I start my computer and .... bummer the computer tells me it can't find any harddrive so I start the computer without a harddrive and get to the BIOS. It turns out the primary harddrive was for some reason set to the drive I put as the slave. I tried fixing the problem (changed some settings) and then reboot the computer. Still does not recognize any harddrive and of course using a boot disk and trying to install the OS from the CD doesn't work because the setup can't recognize any harddrive.

At this point I figure I can just put everything back the way it was and everything will be just fine. Of course that doesn't work and when I start the computer with one harddrive hooked up to the Master and the P2 lines the computer wont recognize the drive. Now I figured I had one last hope, putting everything back to normal in the BIOS; but the BIOS now wont start. Instead I get an MBA thing running something called a PXE and it then asks me for a boot disk which of course is no help at all.

So are there any disks out there I could use to start my BIOS or just set the hardware configuration to something that will work for me? Any recomendations? Do you think I should get any professional help (computer related that is ) ?

[yavoon]

reinstall ur OS

[Sheik]

I can't reinstall the OS because the computer tells me I don't have a harddrive to reinstall it on.

[Asher]

Is it plugged in?

[Sheik]

The harddrive is connected properly

[Asher]

Are you sure?

[Sheik]

100% positive, every cable is in the exact place it was in before I started messing around.

[General Ludd]

What about jumpers? Sounds like it didn't work first time around because you forgot to change the neccisary jumpers, and the second time around because you messed around with the configuration.

(I hope 'jumper' is the right term for the things I'm thinking about. You know, those little plastic bits that you stick on metal prongs.)

[Sheik]

hmm jumpers? well what are those, were do I find them, and what do you recomend I do with them?

[General Ludd]

I already explained what they are - they're little plastic thingies that you stick on prongs. You sometimes need to move them to different prongs to specify how the drive is supposed to behave. (ie. so it doesn't still think it's a master when it's supposed to be a slave) Check your hard drive's manual.

EDIT - Actualy, there's usually a sticker on the drive itself showing you what the different jumper settings do. I don't know if every drive has them, but I assume so.

[Unspeakable Horror]

They are on the back of the drive, see if there´s a picture with the info on how to set them up somewhere in the drive itself.

[Sheik]

I figured out my real problem. I forgot to set one hard drive as a slave on the jumpers and the other as master. I had both set to master.

Thank you Osweld for the jumper insight. Now just to see if setting the jumpers settings works now or if it is too late.

[Q Classic]

the power connectors don't matter what number they are, as long as they fit properly and have the correct voltage/current.

here's what i would do.

1. look for the battery on the motherboard, and take it out.
2. look at both of the hard disks. make sure the jumpers are in their correct positions: make the secondary drive slave, primary the master. these jumpers will be between the power socket and the ide connector socket on most drives, and the settings should either be on a sticker on the drive, or in tiny molded/engraved letters on the drive itself near the jumpers.
3. connect the two drives to the motherboard using the ide cable. make sure that the cable is plugged into the primary ide controller, and that the slave drive is in the middle plug, not the end.
4. put the battery back in the motherboard.
5. power on, and hope that works.

the pxe thing is a protocol used for network service booting. useless if you're not in a networked environment, because the pxe boot is usually used for deployment or remote installation.

[Urban Ranger]

Don't forget to make sure your IDE cable isn't plugged-in backwards.

[Asher]

He's already got it working, ace.