I'll try to be concise. I attempted to add a slave HDD and install a better CD-ROM (40X vs. 1X) to an old computer that we use for offline tasks. Prior to attempting this, I had just ran ScanDisk (thorough) and Disk Defrag and all was well. About halfway thru the add-on, I felt uncomfortable with the prospect that the slower PIO mode on the slave HDD would possibly slow down the other drive. I put everything back and got an error 80 (HDD fail). I put the old 1X CD-Rom back in, thinking that may be it, and then got an error 20. I checked the cable routing, jumpers, cable pin 1 and all that, checked the power cables, etc. to no avail. Boot sequence is set as 'A,C'. On boot-up, the puter goes thru the memory test, the HDD makes its familiar initial sound, and the floppy drive does not work at all. After a moment, I then see the 'Error 20' message. I tried autodetect and the puter does not seem to recognize the HDD. The BIOS settings were intact (stand-by battery is OK). I tried this whole sequence with the other HDD as a master and got the same thing. The HDD is an old bulletproof WD2850, but maybe a newer, badder bullet finally got thru? I am not formally educated in this stuff, just a wannabe ...any ideas? Thank you.

Jack

If you unplugged the interface cables, is there any possibility you damaged one of the pins in the connector on the hdd when re-connecting.

Also did you check what the jumpers were set to on the hdd and cd, and whether they required changing.

Good luck - keep us posted.

I did the same thing a couple of months ago with my computer & no matter what I did I could not get it to recognize the hard drive again. Got the same errors you got. Put the computer back the way it was before, same problem. After about a week of trying I just threw it in the trash. Trial & error is the best learning experience. Lucky though, it was just a 386. Picked up another one for a little of nothing a couple of days later.

Thanks, Mike. I looked in the dark corner where the floppy drive connects and remembered that one end of the cable had a group of the wires split and flipped in the middle of the ribbon cable (it's a dual drive cable ...the part of the cable between drive 1 and 2 is just flat). I had this part of the cable excluded when I'd tried to restore the original set up. The floppy drive now works and the HDD is now recognized, but as the computer is booting from cold, it stops just after the 'UPDATING ESCD ... SUCCESS' and the HDD LED stays on... nothing more. I'm presently checking the expansion cards for a connection problem. I'll let you know when I get this whipped.

Thanks again for your response.

Jack

i have a simiair problem.. but it says. HDC Failure. Press F1 to resume.. then it says enter system disk.. ne ideas on how to get the hdd wrking?