Hi, I have 2 hard drives in my personal, a Hitatchi 320gb IDE drive and a seagate 250gb sata one, I have my os on segate, but the other day i opend the computer to clean the dust out of it, i took the 2 drives out, and i put them back in, but i forgot to put the power cable into the 320 and i was wandering why it wasnt showing up so i connected it up and the computer went off, so i tried to turn it back on and it wouldnt go back on, so i disconnected the drive and it works alright, but i need that drive to back up my files because i need to re-install windows.

So the question basiclly is, My computer goes off when i plug in another hard drive and then it doesnt turn back on, i have to have it disconnected for the computer to turn on.

Whats wrong?

Thanks

Answer:
You can't plug IDE drives in and out at will like SATA drives. You certainly shouldn't be plugging any drives in and out when the PC is switched on anyway, only if push comes to shove. Sounds to me like if everything's connected okay and if the PC only powers up without the drive but not with the drive, then you've actually fried the drive by plugging it in while the Personal computer was switched on. In which case you are pretty much stuffed but you could try visiting this forum http://www.deadharddrive.com/forums/ and ideal of luck.
Answer:
First off, you're computer won't enjoy it if you try to hook something in while it's on, it will shut off. Second, you probably have your IDE cables backwards or something. The IDE ones are the wide ones. Try changing those around, Also make sure the jumper is set correctly.
Answer:
BIOS needs to be configure to make the drive become visible again.
Answer:
Make sure the pin alignment is correct on the non-functioning drive
Answer:
change the ide cable.

does it boot in to bios?

Answer:
Make sure both of your drives are properly connected and boot to the Windows CD. Enter Recovery Console. For the Hitachi 320, run the fix boot (i don't know if it is 1 or 2 words) and also fix mbr (again, i don't know if it is 1 or 2 words.) If that doesn't work, throw the Hitachi into the freezer for about 6 hours then try and boot up with it plugged in. I know that sounds weird but it works. If it works properly after the freezer, then your HD is going bad and you should move everything off of it onto the Seagate. Good luck.
Answer:
you could have damaged something when you was cleaning take your computer to a reputable computer repair shop and try to get them to take a look at it and they shall expalin whats wrong with it

it could be possable that the two hard drives are incompatible but it sounds like you had them working together before check the jumpers on the hard drives that would be a good place to start

to check that your cables are the right way round the ide cables nomally have a red line on one side this should face the red cable on the hard drives power supply

Answer:
Satas dont need jumpers set, they have no concept of master/slave, the IDE drive will not be seen as slave to the sata. As its the only ide drive i anticipate it would be set as a master not slave. Check your bios boot sequence .You need to have SCSI prior to IDE drive otherwise as soon as you connect the ide it will try and boot it instead of the sata

ps: reading it through im not sure i made that last part clear. If you’ve state hd,0 (or whatever a usual hard drive is called in your bios) prior to SCSI in the boot order, when you have the sata alone it will still boot as it is the only hard drive. But when you put in the IDE drive the sata then becomes the SCSI device and your IDE drive becomes hd,0 and it will try and boot from the ide drive.

Answer:
The power supply wattage doesn't matter. Check the 5V voltage rail for its rating against the total wattage consumed by the Hard drives. If it checks out. Then check the voltage levels of your power supply and verfiy. A good PC power supply tester could help. http://www.tigerdirect.com/applications/…

Concur with the first answer too. Check the cables. It should still work and their keyed for proper insertion but, 10 years of computer maintenance has shown me people like square pegs in round holes!

Hopefully the personal was off when you connected this drive. Not only a danger to the personal but a hazard to you. (15watts / 5volts = 3amps) It only takes 15 one thousandths of an amp WAAAAAY less than 3amps to kill a person.

Answer:
Have you tried installing it into a different system, or use different connectors and/or power cable? Did you accidentally dislodge some other components connection, such as the fan(s)? This is probably something extremely easy because it worked fine before you unplugged to blow out the dust. Perhaps the dust was helping to keep it cool, and now the dust is gone and it is overheating? lol Seriously, this is probably something very easy, something you’re missing.

Can you backtrack your steps used to unhook these two drivers? If you can backtrack then move forward and perform each step in reverse you might stumble upon the issue. It works for my anyway.