Hard Drive causing system not to boot?

[pekingman]

On two separate computers, if I connected a SATA power cable to the Seagate 7200.8 drive, the systems fail to turn on. Disconnecting the power to the hard drive I can turn on both systems. What in the world is the deal?

 

[jaqie]

it sounds like the drive is defective or has become defective in a very, very bad way.

 

[NoelS]

pekingman,

Are you connecting both a data and a power cable to the SATA drive? It won't work without 2 cables to it...

Noel

 

[Kirby64]

NoelS, that wouldn't prevent it from booting though. The comp just wouldn't recognize it.

I've had systems fail to get past the post before, as they'd hang on looking for hard drives due to a bad drive, but never turning on at all.
It has to be a bad hard drive, no other real option.

 

[pekingman]

Yeah, I have both connected, but the system won't turn on, much less POST. It does this in 2 functioning machines so it must be the drive. Recently the power supply the drive was connected to took a dump, smoke and all. I'm wondering it it fried the HD as well and now, when hooked up to a new power supply, there is some kind of short that prevent the system from turning on.

 

[NoelS]

pekingman,

That's a different situation. It' possible that PSU fried more than the hard drive. You need to put a new drive in there and see if it will boot... If not you'll probably need to check all your components to see what's good and what's gone.

Noel

 

[pekingman]

No, I know the MB went as well. I replaced the motherboard and it fires up just fine with a new power supply. When I connect the HD, the system won't power up. I put in a new HD and everything works fine. I've isolated the old HD to being the problem.

 

[NoelS]

pekingman,

Glad you finally got it isolated. Wish we had known about the motherboard at first - might have been quicker.

Noel