Drive not ready error after removing hard drive

Archived from groups: comp.sys.ibm.pc.hardware.storage (More info?)

My family has an old Gateway (from 1994). A second hard drive was
installed at some point (most likely by the store in which the drive
was purchased). They want to give it away now, so the hard drive was
removed. The computer would not boot up after this, and something like
"drive not ready" appeared on the screen. (I'm not certain this is the
exact error -- it was a few weeks ago when I last saw it, and I didn't
write it down. I can check again later.) We had tried changing the
connector that the remaining drive was attached to, as well as the
power supply connector. That didn't help. We tried re-installing the
2nd hard drive as well, but it still doesn't work (not that that should
be necessary, of course ... I was just curious as to what would
happen).

One more thing -- a small piece of hardware which is apparently from
the PNY company and appears to be a memory module was found after the
2nd drive was removed. I wasn't watching, so I didn't see what
happened, but I assume it was knocked out during the drive removal. I
know that additional memory had been installed in that computer a few
years ago, so I assume that's what that was. If that is in fact what it
is, then I don't see how it could be the problem, since extra memory
shouldn't be needed to boot up. I wonder, though, if that module
couldn't be something else? (I've installed and replaced components
inside my own computer a few times, but my hardware knowledge is not
yet quite what it should be, and I'm not at all familiar with older
systems/components.)

Anyway, if anyone has any ideas, please let me know. Also, are there
any other groups I ought to be posting this to?

Thanks, RK