I recently bought all my components for my new system piece by piece. I am having a time and a half trying to get my MB (Asus P4T-E) to detect my HD and CDROM. Every now and then it will detect them, but if anything in the system is touched, they are no longer recognized. When I turn on the system, its as if HD doesn't get any power. If I unplug the ATA100 ribbon while system is on from the HD, I can suddenly hear the HD power up. I thought I was having power supply problems, but bought a new supply, and having same problem. I have no idea whats going on :(. Please help.

ok, try putting the cdrom and HD on diffeerent IDE cords.

Just did. Booted up (I had HD out of chassis tho). When I put the HD back in the case, and rebooted, neither HD nor CDROM were detected. THis is getting so frustrating. I have tried every combination of master slave using 3 IDE cables. Will keep trying things. THe fact that it works every now and then is absolutely baffling me.

Check those 4 pin power connectors (w/wires on them), as sometimes they work loose. Personal experience. Make sure BIOS settings are correct. You may have to fiddle around in BIOS to get things recognized ALL the time. Try placing hdd and cd on separate ide channels: hdd on primary and cd on secondary. I haven't had your problem per say, but my Tyan Trinity K7 does have an ornery BIOS. I am using a Gigabyte GA-7IXEH F2 w/Athlon 1.1Ghz and am having no problems with it. You should never unplug anything while power is on! Also sounds like you have a static electricity problem, which is BAD news for you computer. Ground out yourself BEFORE touching ANYTHING in your computer, or those delicate solid electronics will get fried, sooner or later.

First, see if you can resore the BIOS to default using a jumper or taking out the MOBO battery for a few minutes. If that doesn't help, do you have different IDE ribbon to try? And are you using a 40 pin 80 conductor ribbon?

Check the specs on your hard drive. It seems there are some models that need their frames to be electrically isolated from the case ground and only grounded through the power connector. Special mounting screw gromets or plastic mounting rails can be used for this.

hi! i had a problem like this a few years ago with an old mobo. the problem turned out to be nothing to do with the HD/CDROM at all. in the end i discovered that the floppy cable was plugged in upside down and that was causing the problem. the point is it might be nothing to do with the HD/CDROM and could be something completely different elsewhere you have overlooked. hope you get it working! good luck!