I want to know what I did in a past life...

[cabbitzilla]

... that warrants this kind of karmic debt.

• The primary drive in Hutch -is- dead. This has been verified.
• The case that Hutch is in is also a casualty. The power switch literally fell out of it, and I cracked the plastic facing horribly trying (in vain) to get it back together.
• The motherboard in Hutch is dying.

And that's apparently part of the problem. I have EIGHT hard drives here now and none of them will recognize on the primary IDE bus. Most will on the secondary, but only after a lengthy pause in the POST, and none of them will boot. The old primary just grinds. One of the remaining seven has a bad stepper tick to it. The other six? They just power off at the end of the POST and the machine tries to net boot. I grabbed the most promising of the six and put it in the machine that I'd gotten from nightambre and her hubby... and discovered that the power supply in it as toast. *(^#&^! power switch on the case is fscked.

*pounds head on desk*

The PSU from Hutch has been removed and will go into Cave, the gifted machine's new moniker. Provided it'll boot with any of the six, it'll become the core of the new machine. I'm half expecting the to find that the connectors don't match. Or that the old power supply is somehow welded into the case. Or that a band of rampaging aborigine pygmies will burst through the door and steal it all.

I'm having one of those months.

EDIT: I've amended the post above as needed and will explain. The damage to the front face of Hutch is because the power switch is broken. With this latest revalation, I now have -2- cases with borked power switches. So now we get down and get funky and try to somehow splice together a switch.

Can I get off this ride now?

Comments

[shikyrie.livejournal.com]

"And that's apparently part of the problem. I have EIGHT hard drives here now and none of them will recognize on the primary IDE bus. Most will on the secondary, but only after a lengthy pause in the POST, and none of them will boot. The old primary just grinds. One of the remaining seven has a bad stepper tick to it. The other six? They just power off at the end of the POST and the machine tries to net boot. I grabbed the most promising of the six and put it in the machine that I'd gotten from nightambre and her hubby... and discovered that the power supply in it as toast. *(^#&^! power switch on the case is fscked."

If your other system is a newer system, and if the drives are somewhat newer, make sure you have the proper 80-wire Cables instead of the older 40-wire cables. They both have the same number of pins, but the 80-wires (which are easily distinguishable as they have a blue connector at the MB end usually, and even if they don't you can tell them by the finer wiring) are faster, and can handle the throughput of data etc. better. We had the same problem with the hard-drive on my roommate's computer not booting properly, or rebooting before it finished the POST. Checked a number of different solutions, some of which were proposed by my advisor at school, and none of them worked, until, by chance, I put in an 80-wire cable, and presto, it worked. Hope this helps some.

[elisabeth.livejournal.com]

The only thing using the older 40wire band are the optical drives. I've almost got an amalgam system to the point of testing it... I just need to get my fat arse down on the floor and do it. More when I've had a chance to fiddle with things. Cross your fingers. If you hear an explosion from the general direction of Maryland, say a little prayer for my soul, okay?

[shikyrie.livejournal.com]

I'll just pray that it's thunder. but yes, I will wish you luck.