Help With Pentium III Computer!

[y4na]

I was playing with my dad's (old) computer at my friend's house and decided to go to the bathroom. I come back and he has taken all the IDE cables out... So I want to make this computer workable again but I don't know what I should do. There's 3 cable. One that as a blue port (I don't know what it's called) and two black ones. One that is really long with three black ports, and one that is fairly short and has a twist in the cable, with three black ports.

I have:
one CD writer
one DVD writer
one floppy drive
one IDE hard drive

[DaveW]

One of the cables will be slightly smaller than the other, and will only fit onto one motherboard socket. That's the floppy cable. Plug that in.

The other two cables are your IDE cables. You'll have two ports on your motherboard. First, plug one cable into the motherboard and then into the back of the hard drive. If it has two ports on it, plug in each end and leave the middle one free. That's you plugged that in. The other cable should have two connectors on it. One connector will go into the first drive, then the one in the middle of the cable into the second drive. The end should go into the motherboard.

Hey presto, it's all plugged in. The cables should only fit one way so don't worry too much. In some cases the cables are used to configure the system, so if something isn't working you may need to move around the IDE cables.

There's plenty of pictures online that will help you through this. Good Luck. ;)

-Dave

[Collinstheclown]

Also, for the floppy cable make sure the side with the twist goes into the floppy drive. ;)




-CollinstheClown

[y4na]

I've done this and it says: Error: Floppy (40)

[Luke122]

That error can mean the floppy cable is backwards, or the power for the floppy drive is unplugged.

[y4na]

Also in the beginning black screen it says that the primary and secondary isn't there.

[Luke122]

Since there are two ports for IDE on the motherboard, you might have them swapped. The one for the hard drive should be on IDE 1, and the optical drives on IDE 2.

Also, you know that this should be powered off while you swap these around right?

[y4na]

On the IDE cables there are three ports, left right and middle. What port should I put in the motherboard and what port should I put in the hardware? If the red wire was facing up.

._________________________
|____________|____________|
|____________|____________|
left.............middle.............right

Also is it okay if there are some ports unconnected?

[Luke122]

It doesnt really matter which end is attached to the motherboard, as long as the cable reaches where it needs to be.

For the floppy cable, the end with the twist needs to be at the floppy drive, and the other end goes to the motherboard.

Also, not all ports need to be connected, but every hard drive or optical drive needs to have a cable connecting it.

[y4na]

The Computer

http://img21.imageshack.us/img21/6963/img0019om.jpg

Inside

http://img694.imageshack.us/img694/1480/img0020b.jpg

Ports

http://img691.imageshack.us/img691/5458/img0022wh.jpg

The Cables

http://img12.imageshack.us/img12/2084/img0023mp.jpg (http://img12.imageshack.us/i/img0023mp.jpg/)

Error Angle 1

http://img21.imageshack.us/img21/475/img0029dc.jpg

Error Angle 2

http://img109.imageshack.us/img109/7419/img0031e.jpg

Error Angle 3

http://img33.imageshack.us/img33/1238/img0033hj.jpg

[Luke122]

OK, the blue port on the motherboard is lablled as Primary IDE. That is the port where the hard drive would be connected to.

Start with just that one cable for now.. blue plug to blue port.

The hard drive cable should have the red stripe pointing TOWARD the power plug on the hard drive. Most of these cables will only plug in one way, but just in case, that's a good way to remember.. red towards power.

If the computer still does not recognize the hard drive, you can try to flip the other end of the cable (at the motherboard) and try again.

Did this computer work before the cables were removed? Was the system powered off when the cables were removed?

[y4na]

OK, the blue port on the motherboard is lablled as Primary IDE. That is the port where the hard drive would be connected to.

Start with just that one cable for now.. blue plug to blue port.

The hard drive cable should have the red stripe pointing TOWARD the power plug on the hard drive. Most of these cables will only plug in one way, but just in case, that's a good way to remember.. red towards power.

If the computer still does not recognize the hard drive, you can try to flip the other end of the cable (at the motherboard) and try again.

Did this computer work before the cables were removed? Was the system powered off when the cables were removed?

Yeah I put the blue in the blue, and yes it did work before the cables were taken out. The system was powered off but the power cord was still in.

I can take more pictures if that would help.

[Drum Thumper]

Luke is on the right track--start with one cable, preferably the IDE cable going to the hard drive.

Also, unseat the power molexes and reseat them. Could be the issue.

[y4na]

Guys thanks for the help. You guys helped me put the cables in right. What I did to solve the problem was that I took out the jumper from my HD and kept it out. It is now single? I believe.

[x88x]

Since each IDE channel can communicate with two drives, each drive must be set as either master or slave (one master and one slave per channel). A lot of later HDDs have the same jumper position for master and single but some need different positions. Most IDE HDDs have a legend printed on them somewhere, either a sticker on the top or silk-screened onto the PCB, that identify the jumper positions. If it's not there, post the make and line of the HDD, and I might be able to help.

For ODDs, almost universally, the order is:
C|S|M
S|L|A
(MA=master, SL=slave, CS=cable select) ...ignore cable select. It was supposed to let the MBB auto-negotiate the master/slave relationship, but I've only ever seen it work correctly on one system...and that one required that the drives be set to CS, or they wouldn't work at all :facepalm:

[billygoat333]

my experience was mixed with cable select. my old amd 550mhz did just fine with cable select, my old pentium 100 (oc'd to 133mhz FTW! lol) was finicky about it.