dell deminsion won't recognize hdd's

[ThirdLeft152]

I had a dell i was working with this morning and it worked fine. then i went to put another hdd in and unplugged the original hdd, bios read it fine. then i plugged both of them in and the computer wouldn't recognized either one. i've tried putting it back the way it was and nothing seems to be working. any ideas besides reset CMOS?

thanks

 

[phucng_10]

Set as Master. Plugged in the SATA power connector?

 

[ThirdLeft152]

yeah it's weird i think i figured it out. the computer is kind of old so no it doesn't have any SATA connections or power connections. the computer is really touchy and for some reason it will only boot if the original hdd is connected to the master plug of the cable while the pin is set to master, however if i try to set both to cable select or set the original drive to slave and the new drive to master it won't work. it only likes the one hdd. (the only way the ribbon will plug in set aside from switching the hdd's positions is the original in slave and the new one in master) however its really not that big of a deal i was just going to try to low-level format it, and i think i can do it through an external enclosure just fine?..