Hi guys, decided to trash the laptop with screwed h/d I wrote about earlier. Found a 386 for free at a yard sale, it worked fine a few days ago, running 3.1, but now won't boot up, the fan runs, but light for h/d does nothing. What could be the cause for this? Any help greatly appreciated as always. No luck with computers so far... Trev

Sorry to say, but the HDD may be dead. Does your computer go through the normal POST routine? You could try checking or switching the drive's power cable, but sometimes they just give up the ghost. If it's an IDE drive (most were) you should be able to find an old replacement drive somewhere for next to nothing.

Hi jboy, thanks for your reply. How do I tell if it's a IDE drive? I've checked all the connections (don't really know what I'm doing) and there's nothing out of place as far as I can tell. Unsure what 'POST routine' is, but when I switch it on, the fan makes a noise, the h/d sounds like the fan also, no rattles like my laptop h/d. There's no beep, no scanning of A drive, nothing at all. I could leave it all day and it won't go beyond that. I'm not sure if that helps. ANy advice would be gratefully accepted. Thanks Trev

This does not sound too encouraging.... The POST (Power On Self Test) is the check that the 'puter does to ensure everything is hunky-dory (memory, drives, kbd etc). All this occurs before the Operating System is loaded - if something's wrong you usu receive extra beeps or error messages, but if this isn't happening, then you may have a bad motherboard or cpu. On the brighter side, it sounds as if the power supply may be ok and maybe even the hard drive. At least the price was right! Not sure what to tell you, you might try switching cpu's if you can find a 386 of the same MHz - if it's the board... well that's probably all she wrote. IDE drives have one 40 strand data cable connecting either to the motherboard controller or a card-type controller, commonest type around. Your drive is spinning, but you don't hear the rattling caused by the read/write heads, cuz the HDD isn't receiving any instructions from the cpu. You have had some bad luck lately, it seems, but a lot of those old machines can still be made to work (maybe not this one tho')

Well, the adventure continues...Maybe I'll jag another one at a yard sale and mix and match. At least, it would seem, the hd is okay. That's a start, and as you said the price was good. When I get a working machine, I'll post and let you know. Bad luck will eventually get sick of following me around. Meanwhile, thanks for your help, and keep doing what you do. Trev

Just wish I'd had better news for you. The HDD *may* be good - at least it's spinning. You can always salvage parts - cables, ram, power supply, floppy drive etc - or possibly drop another board in the machine. With enough spare parts you will be able to determine what works and what doesn't. Good luck on the 'adventure' *g*