I baught a new computer and took a cdrom drive from the old one to use in the new. During that process I disconnect several wires to accesss the drive more easily. Problem is now I wanna transfer data from that drive onto another computer, but the computer won't boot up! It powers up but the screen stays blank and theres no "computer is doing stuff" sound. All the wires seem to be in place, so what's up?!?!

When you removed the CDrom drive you changed the setup in the old computer and changed the setup in the new. There are things called jumpers on the back or the harddrives and CDroms. They must be set properly in order for the computer to boot. Take care of one computer at a time. Give more details about what drives are in the computer. Do you have just one harddrive and one CDrom? Are they both connected using the same cable? If this is the case then you need to set the jumper on the harddrive as master (with slave attached) and the CDrom as slave. Connect the harddrive to the end of the cable with the red stripe facing the number one pin. Connect the CDrom to the middle of the cable with the red stripe facing the number one pin. The other end of the cable should connect to the IDE 0 header. That is probably where you have it but you may have it on the other one. The red stripe facing number one pin.

here is my current setup on old computer: no CD ROM drive, don't need it. hardrive is set to master. I don't know which slot is IDE 0 header, all I know is that one is labeled IDE primary and the other is unmarked. The hard drive is in the unmarked one. so with this setup, what is wrong? Do I HAVE to have the CDROM connected?

No, you don't have to have a CDrom. Connect the ribbon cable to the header marked primary. Some harddrives have two master settings, one for master alone and one for master with slave. Check and see if you have those options. If so, of course you would select master alone. Is this machine currently running?

Hi If still will not boot go in to bios setup and see if hdd is detected. if that does not work post back on how far it gets. hangs before or after post.

the hard drive has these relevent options: master, enable cable select, and master with non-ata compatible slave. the computer itself runs, but nothing shows up on screen and it doesn't amke any loading noises. I think a piece of hardware died :s

I suggest disconnecting all the drives and pulling all the cards, except the video card. If it still won't display anything, you have narrowed the defective unit down a little.