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computer will not power on when hard drive is connected

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poisonthewell

Senior member
Just got done building my 1st HTPC, I only have one DVD drive. After moving the DVD back to my main rig, I did a little cable management and unplugged the power to the HDD. The computer now will not power back on when the power is connected to the HDD. I have tested, connected, disconnected everything - even tried a different power supply, but the common denominator each time the system will not startup is the power being plugged into the HDD.

Just for kicks I took the HDD out and set is as a slave drive in the HTPC, it won't startup with the power connected as well. The drive is a few years old, and I've never had any trouble with it. Any ideas on how I can get this thing working again? I'm fully prepared to copy all of the data to a new drive, just need to figure out how to get a computer to turn on with it plugged in.

Just to clarify when I hit the power button, nothing at all occurs. When I unplug the power to the drive, the system starts up and eventually tells me there is no hard disk connected. Sorry for the redundancy or if I left something out, I'm a little exhausted from working on this all evening.
 
No helpful suggestions from the AT crew? Anyway, I don't know WTF the problem was. I let the computer sit for an hour or so and started searching G more for some help, disconnected everything once more, reconnected all the peripherals and voila! It's alive again. Sooooo, umm lesson learned? Not sure.
 
Something similar to this happened with me. I ended up flipping the power connector and sticking it in... and it began working.

I dunno if this applies to your situation, or if I'm remembering wrong, but my problem was very much the same.
 
1) have you tried a different cable to the drive, I have had some ide cables where there was a pinch / break in the cable but couldnt really see it and caused that sort of issue.
2) if it s a WD drive there is a different jumper setting if it is a single drive on the cable.
 
Originally posted by: poisonthewell
Just got done building my 1st HTPC, I only have one DVD drive. After moving the DVD back to my main rig, I did a little cable management and unplugged the power to the HDD. The computer now will not power back on when the power is connected to the HDD. I have tested, connected, disconnected everything - even tried a different power supply, but the common denominator each time the system will not startup is the power being plugged into the HDD.

Just for kicks I took the HDD out and set is as a slave drive in the HTPC, it won't startup with the power connected as well. The drive is a few years old, and I've never had any trouble with it. Any ideas on how I can get this thing working again? I'm fully prepared to copy all of the data to a new drive, just need to figure out how to get a computer to turn on with it plugged in.

Just to clarify when I hit the power button, nothing at all occurs. When I unplug the power to the drive, the system starts up and eventually tells me there is no hard disk connected. Sorry for the redundancy or if I left something out, I'm a little exhausted from working on this all evening.
Click to expand...

If it's an older drive (IDE) and it works as a slave device in the HTPC, then I would replace the IDE cable with an IDE-133 compatible cable and double check the jumpers on the drive to make sure that it's set to master. Some computers don't like the CS (Cable Select) jumper setting and need the drive to be in master mode.
 
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