Ok, so if you remember back to late July, my computer apparently had a harddrive failure. My computer was giving a message saying: "Hard Disk cannot be found".

After doing some research and junk, I found out several solutions that all told me: "Why dont I just buy a new computer and part ways with my 10 year old Gateway?"

Well, I recently started school up again (Senior Year of High School), and I joined the PC Support Class (Maintains electronics in school). 1 week into it and guess what, our teacher gave us a troubleshooting scenario where we were getting the message: "Drive 0 not found". I found this humorous because this problem decided to come back to haunt me a month later. So, we spent the period troubleshooting and I got plenty of first-hand experience becoming familiar with the insides of computers, the power cables, and the data cables.

So tonight I thought to myself, why the hell not, lets open up my old computer and see if we can come up with the answer. So I opened up the computer, located the harddrive, and started some brief visual troubleshooting. Upon following the power cable from the harddrive, I couldnt help but notice it didnt go anywhere... Well, red flags where flying everywhere, I realized I was out of my depth, and I figured I will talk to my teacher tomorrow before doing anything. The reason I backed out was because 1) if the power cable did unplug itself, I have no idea or understanding as to how it magically did that, and 2) I was not sure I could get to the ports to plug in the power cable because it looks like the power supply is blocking my reach.

Is anyone able to help convince me that I am not crazy? Guesses as to how this could of happen would be nice. At this point, the only thing I can possibly think of would be the fan knocking the power cable loose through vibrations or airflow...

Hi aussiemcgr,
This is a prime example of the reason to have electronic equipment serviced by a qualified Electronics Engineering Technologist.

Not really sure I follow. What do you mean it doesn't go anywhere? Can you take a high res picture of the inside?

I am puzzled also. You say the power cable goes from the hard drive but is not plugged in at the other end? I don't see how that is possible. The power connector is supposed to eventually "merge into a bundle" with power wires from other devices such as floppy and cdrom, and this bundle is supposed to go into the power supply.

Are you sure you are not talking about a broad flat cable, probably gray in color, with a faint red line along one edge? That is not a power cable, that is the ide cable. That is the cable through which data is transfered from the hard drive into RAM memory. The IDE cable plugs into the motherboard the red line should align with a number 1 of the multipin connector on the motherboard.

Be careful tinkering here. Make sure you are aware of issues with regards to static electricity, grounding, etc. A discharge of static electricity can damage your computer.

I'm not going to waste my money trying to fix a 10 year old machine that has all of its hardware out of date...



The only camera I have is the web cam on my new laptop. I couldnt get sufficient enough light or zoom in (still figuring out how to use it) to get a picture clear enough for anything to be really clear. However I did take the clearest possible picture of the inside that I was able to for your viewing pleasure.





First, yes, I am fully aware of static electricity issues. I am fully aware of making sure I discharge all static electricity. And I am fully aware that I should make sure the computer is both turned off and unplugged before opening the case. I made sure I was very careful but with all seriousness, frying the computer really wouldnt be a disaster for me. Even if I could get it working, I doubt I would use it.
Second, yes, I do know the difference between the data and power cables. That was the first thing we learned in class.


BUT, here is where I find out how totally out of my depth I am. Upon further inspection, I came across something that I didnt come across on the computers in school. The power cable is split several times. By that I mean the power cable has two different paths leaving the harddrive (and several other splits later on). One path I lead to the area behind the power supply which I am unsure how to get to. The other is the path I followed originally to a dead end. SO, I was wrong. I believe the power cable DOES connect up correctly and the harddrive is getting power. So my next question would be: "Why does the power cable split several times?"

Can't tell a great deal from that picture, but it's perfectly normal to have a several power connectors along the same group of cables and some of them won't be in use at all (hence the one you thought that just went to nowhere).
All the power cables are actually part of the PSU and all originate there (you would never open the PSU up unless you were a qualified electrical engineer).

If your hard drive isn't being detected then it looks as if it's the IDE cable / motherboard or drive itself, not power.

right. that answers that question about going off into nowhere. Aussie, don't think of it as splitting as you trace back from the hard drive, think of it as splitting as you trace it from the power supply.

Anyways Aussie, it sounds like the course is telling you all the right things. Good luck with it.