Cannot detect hard drive

[cnelson8611]

A bought a computer at a pawn shop (nice place eh) only because the case is exactly like mine. I decided to plug it in and see what type of resources it has but it only gets to the bios and lists all drives as none.
I checked the hard drive and floppy wires and even disconnected the hd and reinstalled with no luck. I changed the startup in the bios to start from c drive but no luck. There's no cd-rom.

I think someone just built this pc and didn't know what they were doing. There is an extremely old motherboard and processor in it with a 40 GB h.d.

I'm afraid of putting the h.d. in my newer pc just in case.

How else can I get this pc to run?

 

[tractorboy]

what is the mainbord model
and processor model

 

[cnelson8611]

O.k. The processor is pentium II with MMX
and the motherboard is a 'Space shuttle' AV61
hard drive is a Maxtor 40GB

 

[tractorboy]

1. go into the bios and make sure the primary and secondary ide controller is turned on and set to auto. I was just thinking that I have never ever seen a bad ide controller. I know now I will get a post from everybody that has.

2. clear the cmos. I have seen secondary ide controllers brought back to life.

3. look in the bios and see if the hd and / or cdrom is being picked up...or the bios code when she boots.

4. make SURE that you know for sure whick socket on the mainboard is the secondary and primary...just because they came plugged in does not mean that is correct.

5. try the hd or cdrom on both the primary and secondary controllers ...and see if you see the device in bios.

6. This should be first, check the jumpers on the devices.

7. try one ide device at a time

 

[cnelson8611]

I did finally get the bios to see the hd. I had to set the jumpers for clj master then changed the ide to the proper setting. Also, I missed it, the IDE cable wasn't fully plugging in.

 

[tractorboy]

That will do it......take nothing for granted