Darrell, I don't know how much you know about these things, but did you try setting the hard drive to Master and setting the cd 
drive to slave or cable select?  Also, make sure that the connector ribbon is well seated.  It may also be that the hard drive has 
to be connected to the end of the ribbon and the cd to the middle.  I would first try it without the cd connected to the ribbon at 
all and see if it will recognize the hd, then, once it recognizes the hd, connect the cd.  (I am assuming that this is a desktop; if 
it is a laptop, then the ribbon suggestion may be irrelevant.)  It may be, too, that in the cmos settings you have to choose the 
auto-detect hard drive settings.  If it is a very old computer, you might want to install a new battery (that holds the cmos 
settings.)  They only cost a couple of dollars at Wal-Mart or the Shack.

Good luck!

Dean Kukral

----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Darrell Dunn" <[log in to unmask]>
Sent: Wednesday, July 16, 2008 6:56 AM
Subject: [PCBUILD] hard drive / cd drive not detected


I have a dell optiplex gx240 which I bought from government surplus, it did
not come with a hard drive. when I installed a hard drive the computer does
not detect it nor the cd drive which was already on it. when I turn on the
computer it only gives me the option to retry boot sequence, ( which does
nothing) or go to setup. when I go to setup it does not show the hard drive
nor the cd drive, only the floppy drive. what must be done to correct this
problem?

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