Jim,
When it tried to restart, did you have any video.
I suspect that you lost your bios config.
When you remove your battery and reset your bios, try(as suggested) removing
everything except your video and floppy, and hdd.
boot up your floppy and try to access your hdd.'
(would be nice if you had more than one partition. I always make at least 2
partions. First being a 250mb fat16 C: partition for my mbr stuff).

Since your were running for 4 hours and then crashed, and then your old hdd
is not working either, its looks like your controller on you mobo or
something in your mobo is the problem.

Pwr supply is also a good suggestion to look at.

Make sure your memory chips did not fry. But if that is the case, you would
not post.
You may also rule out your mobo by booting with your cdrom on the same
channel as where your hdd is plugged into your mobo. Unplug your hdd and
plug the cdrom into that connector and try that.
IF that is ok, then we are pointed back to bios.
If not, mobo (maybe). Still maybe bios.

Double check all connections. A loose connection will do this.
(but it seems you already did so by replacing the ribbon cable).
Just thinking on the keyboard.

All I can come up with.
[log in to unmask]



>From: Jim Gragnaniello <[log in to unmask]>
>Reply-To: PCBUILD - Personal Computer Hardware discussion List
><[log in to unmask]>
>To: [log in to unmask]
>Subject: [PCBUILD] UNRECONIZED HARD DRIVE
>Date: Sat, 16 Feb 2002 15:23:04 -0500
>
>Hello, I am in need Some HELP!. To start off I am a novice pc person. I
>buit a p/c for my son with parts from a riend and some that I had bought.
>It is a pent II 266 with 32 mb of ram. After putting everything together
>the p/c ran great for about a week. I then bought a bigger hard drive for
>the pc and it worked fine for about 4 hours. The computer froze up and when
>restarted it would not reconize hard drive at all. I thought I had a bad
>hard drive since I bought it used but when I stuck the old one that was
>working great before I took it out back in it does the same thing. I tried
>to go into set up and auto detect it but it does nothing. Its like the hard
>drive is not there. You can hear it running and clicking on start up but
>the computer is not detecting it. I have hard drive as primary and c/d rom
>as slave. It detects the cd rom but not the hard drive. I tried changing
>the ribbon but still the same thing happeneds. I try do do a fdisk and it
>says that there is no fixed disk attached.I have tried everything I know
>but I think I have hit a brick wall. I have also cleared the cosmos but to
>no avail. Am I missing something or is there something else I can check? My
>next step is to replace the motherboard. This was also purchased used. I do
>have one other hard drive that I put in to see if it would detect it but it
>wont. Does any one have any idea. PLEASE HEPL.
>
>Jim
>
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