>I recently brought an old 486 in to get a new CMOS battery.  Since I
>brought it home, I have been unable to get it to work.

   Did you ever take in a car for a brake job and the shop told you there
was a broken shock absorber, or cracked strut, or something else? It's
Murphy's Law for computer repairmen that they will be blamed for anything
else wrong with a computer other than the original problem and people won't
see it in the same light as a car repair.

  Here's what can happen to a drive in your scenario: 1. It dies on the
drive to the shop. Did you start it up in front of the shop owner? 2. It
dies on the operating table a natural death. 3. It survived the battery
transplant, but died on the trip home.

   I'm not saying you are blaming the shopowner since you didn't say
anything to accuse them of whacking your drive. But drives do die and at
very inopportune times. I have had many Western Digital drives die (two in
one week on the same machine at my house) and yet I still buy their
products. They replace them within three years if they fail and once they
get outside that limit you are running on borrowed time in my opinion. All
drives will fail eventually (we think, but can't be sure as there are about
1 billion still ticking out there in computers) and many within 5-7 years.

  That speech in behalf of technicians out of the way I will address your
computer concerns: *;-)

   If the drive autodetected then you may have some life yet left in it.
Change it back to the master jumper block, put it back in the 486 and boot
with a boot floppy. See if you can see it in the BIOS (you said you
autodetected?)  and then check and see if it shows up in Fdisk. Run the
diagnostic disk file from Western Digital...you can pick up a copy at their
website:

  http://www.wdc.com/service/diagnostics.html


All the best,

Russell Smith
Edtech Consultant, Journalist
A+ Certified Technician
http://www.rustysmith.com

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