How not to install your hard drives

[DOOM]

Here's a silly account of one self-proclaimed guru (ahem) setting up his computer in a new case.

I installed and mounted everything in the new case. Powered it on. Smelled a really bad burning smell and got a "CANNOT BOOT" error message. Quickly turned the system off.

Opened the case looked around inside. Sure enough it smelled pretty bad, but I couldn't see any damage. None of the components were burned, so I booted it back up. Must have just been some dust or cleaning agent in the PSU getting burned away... Sure enough, the mobo, memory, CPU, and vid are working, because I get a memtest and POST. But there's that smell again!

Come to find out (after much screwing around), here's what happened:

1) I had plugged in the floppy drive's power lead off by one pin, so the 5V line was attached to the ground lead on the drive.

2) I powered on the system, which instantly fried the floppy drive and began cooking the insulation on the floppy power line, thus giving off the burning smell.

3) The burning power line scorched the IDE ribbon connecting my CD-ROM and HD on the secondary chain, which incidentally, were both jumpered as slaves.

4) The IDE ribbon was subsequently damaged, thus burning out the master channel on my HD and the master channel on my mobo IDE-2 chain.

5) When I took everything out to troubleshoot, I hooked my OTHER drive up with that cable, which caused the master channel on THAT drive and the master channel on the IDE-1 chain to burn out as well.

6) In the end, I had to buy a new floppy, sever the burned power lead, and run both my hard drives as slaves on separate channels.

Moral of the story: CHECK YOUR JUMPERS AND CABLES!!!

Ha!

p.s. Anyone want to buy a slightly used ASUS TUSL2-C w/ P3 800 EB, stock HSF, 512 MB PC133 ??? (snicker)

-DOOM
______________________________

<pre>MOV AX,0040
MOV DS,AX
MOV WORD PTR [0072],1234
CLI
JMP FFFF:0000</pre><p>

 

[lhgpoobaa]

well i just hope you have learnt from your expensive mistake.

<b>Damn War! I'm too young to watch other people die!</b>
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[umheint0]

That is pretty damn funny, I gotta say. You sure fumbled the ball on that one ;-)

XP 2500+ Barton
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Onboard audio

 

[RCPilot]

ROTFLMAO.

But I can't be all that hard on you. I've done some stupid things myself. Anyone that has ever really messed with a computer & hasn't had a F--up, really hasn't messed with a computer!!!

If it ain't broke, take it apart & see why not!

 

[DOOM]

word... that's how you learn! i've been doing this for 10 years. i remember the first time i messed up my parents' computer by using wordperfect to edit autoexec.bat

-DOOM
______________________________

<pre>MOV AX,0040
MOV DS,AX
MOV WORD PTR [0072],1234
CLI
JMP FFFF:0000</pre><p>

 

[jihiggs]

man, that sucks, getting the power conector on a floppy isnt that hard either. you have to have forced it though.

my computer is so fast, it completes an endless loop in less than 4 seconds!

 

[LumberJack]

Man... you made my day

To err is human... to really screw things up you need a computer!

 

[jlanka]

what does your sig do?

<i>It's always the one thing you never suspected.</i>

 

[DOOM]

On a DOS machine, it reboots the system.

-DOOM
______________________________

<pre>MOV AX,0040
MOV DS,AX
MOV WORD PTR [0072],1234
CLI
JMP FFFF:0000</pre><p>

 

[LumberJack]

Ah yes.. I remember that back in the days of dos hacks and batch files... hehe.. I remember the huge crase was writing some assembly to mask the cursor on the screen with another character... ahh.. thos were the days... I guess you can still play Commander Keen on XP if you really tried



To err is human... to really screw things up you need a computer!

 

[Booky]

Almost as good as the guy I know who RMA 3 motherboards in a row before he figured out his mounting posts were grounding out his board. Cheack your studs

Crap, all the good ones are already taken.

 

[DOOM]

So, you guys are gonna laugh but...

The drives were jumpered as Master w/ Slave Present, not Single like they were supposed to be.

The drives are perfectly fine.
The motherboard's perfectly fine.

Ahhhh life is kind of silly, isn't it?

-DOOM
______________________________

<pre>MOV AX,0040
MOV DS,AX
MOV WORD PTR [0072],1234
CLI
JMP FFFF:0000</pre><p>

 

[rebturtle]

LOL. I remember having to RMA my first good board, an A7V133, because I slid the floppy back while it was still plugged in and shorted out my fan header. We all learn.

<A HREF="http://rebturtle.com" target="_new">rebturtle</A>
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[Traqr]

Wow, a great laugh, <i>and</i> a happy ending. [sniff]

<font color=blue>Learn from the mistakes of others. You won't live long enough to make them all yourself.</font color=blue><font color=green>
<i>Canadian Flight Safety periodical, ~1987</i></font color=green>

 

[Crashman]

Your last name isn't Riordan is it?

<font color=blue>Watts mean squat if you don't have quality!</font color=blue>

 

[DOOM]

Nope

-DOOM
______________________________

<pre>MOV AX,0040
MOV DS,AX
MOV WORD PTR [0072],1234
CLI
JMP FFFF:0000</pre><p>

 

[Victory]

Reminds of the AMD Reality check. The two guys that finished to go for the 2500 prize money. First guy finishes his machine in around 10 mins. Hits the power button(no smoke) but floppy not found message comes up. He just lost. The second guy(being the smart one) decides to take his time(you have up to 1/2hour to complete) and spend the whole time doubling checking everything. Guess what 30 mins later, boots the machine, No floppy found. I was ready to jump on stage and slap both these guys. It's a relatively simple task, but many of us are desperate to get these new machines up and running we sometimes skip over the little things. Oh well, live and learn. Glad you didn't fry your whole system though.

Save heating costs on your home, overclock your PC!!!

 

[xxsk8er101xx]

one time while at work i went to plug in a hard drive while the computer was still on. It just cut out the power supply. I unplugged it for a couple hours and plugged it back in and it was fine.

"Bread makes me poop!" - Special Ed

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