Greetings, building/repairing a dell dimension 4550, have everything plugged into the mobo, power supply works, fan on, but the hard drive will not spin or power on if the ide cable is connected. If I disconnect the ide cable, the drive will power on and spin, swapped with new cable,does the same thing, any ideas??? Thanks!!

Either try the harddrive as a slave in a different machine or try a different harddrive in the dell. either way you will determine if the drive or motherboard is shot. I used to have a signature but it disappeared and I just couldn't be bothered writing another so please feel free to ingore this.

I'm not sure what you are saying...can you use hard drive on cdrom cable and see if it works there? Sounds like hard drive is gone which is more likely than ide controller. How old is drive?

....or the jumpers aren't set correctly or the cable is plugged in upside-down ASUS A7N8X-X Athlon XP 1800+ 8.5 x 200MHz 1280MB PC3200 2.5-3-3-7 Asus A9550GE/TD 128MB WinME/WinXP Pro SP1

sounds to me like a) jumpers are not set properly b) cable is backwards/upside-down c) the hard drive is not compatible w/ that machine. all that proprietary manufacturer crap, you know. make sure the jumpers are correct and the cable is the way it should be. the side of the cable with a red stripe is where pin 1 is, and if the hard drive's connector isn't labeled, the red usually goes toward the power connector on the hard drive. Argue for your limitations and sure enough, they're yours. R. Bach

Hello, thank you all for the replies. The hard drive does work in my other machine, I have the jumpers configured as specified on the drive itself (Maxtor) as a master drive, the cables can only be inserted or plugged in 1 due to the little notch at the end of the ide cables. Its wierd, if I unplug the cable and power on the machine, the drive starts spinning. If I have both the power cable and IDE cable plugged in and power on the machine, the drive does nothing. Its a new mobo, just bought it. Thanks again for the replies.

the hard drive is not compatible w/ that machine. all that proprietary manufacturer crap, you know. i have had this happen with a dell of my own. sometimes the only hard drive that will work in them is a drive sold by dell themselves. gateway systems also seem to do this sometimes. Argue for your limitations and sure enough, they're yours.