Changes

I did more work on the computer. Like the old drive in the upper bay, the replacement drives had a parallel ATA interface. There is only one IDE channel on the motherboard with a single ribbon cable that needs to connect to both the replacement hard drive and the optical drive. At one end of the ribbon cable is a connector that sits in the IDE channel. Twelve inches from that connector is another connector that goes to a drive, and 18 inches from the first connector is the other end of the ribbon cable with another drive connector. Thus the two drive connectors on the ribbon cable are six inches apart. I fixed the PATA connector to the optical drive in the upper drive bay, but the other drive connector would reach only to the top position in the lower drive bay. I wanted to find a way to put the new drive lower in the bay, but there were no other IDE channels and no extensions for the ribbon cable, so I decided to put the drive at the top of the lower bay. However, when I tried to insert the drive, it collided with two expansion cards and a heat sink and would not go into the bay. I removed one of the expansion cards, but the heat sink still kept the drive from going in. The upper bay was also obstructed with cables except where the old drive had been. There I would only have to detach the power supply to put in the new drive.

I did more work on the computer. Like the old drive in the upper bay, the replacement drives had a parallel ATA interface. There is only one IDE channel on the motherboard with a single ribbon cable that needs to connect to both the replacement hard drive and the optical drive. At one end of the ribbon cable is a connector that sits in the IDE channel. Twelve inches from that connector is another connector that goes to a drive, and 18 inches from the first connector is the other end of the ribbon cable with another drive connector. Thus the two drive connectors on the ribbon cable are six inches apart. I fixed the PATA connector to the optical drive in the upper drive bay, but the other drive connector would reach only to the top position in the lower drive bay. I wanted to find a way to put the new drive lower in the bay, but there were no other IDE channels and no extensions for the ribbon cable, so I decided to put the drive at the top of the lower bay. However, when I tried to insert the drive, it collided with two expansion cards and a heat sink and would not go into the bay. I removed one of the expansion cards, but the heat sink still kept the drive from going in. The upper bay was also obstructed with cables except where the old drive had been. There I would only have to detach the power supply to put in the new drive.

That is what I did. I retrieved the cradle that had held the old drive and screwed the new drive into it. I detached the power supply and mounted the drive. Then I put the case back together, brought the computer to its table, connected peripheral devices and network cables, and turned it on. It displayed messages that there were no bootable drives or files. I inserted the Windows 7 CD but the problem persisted. I thought the optical drive and the hard drive must not be connected to the IDE channel.

That is what I did. I retrieved the cradle that had held the old drive and screwed the new drive into it. I detached the power supply and mounted the drive. Then I put the case back together, brought the computer to its table, connected peripheral devices and network cables, and turned it on. It displayed messages that there were no bootable drives or files. I inserted the Windows 7 CD but the problem persisted. I thought the optical drive and the hard drive must not be connected to the IDE channel. The connector at the channel might be loose or the the connectors at the drives might be loose. Another possibility that I thought of was that I had disconnected a cable that enabled the IDE channel to work. I opened the computer case again and continued to work on the computer. I even took out the hard drive and tried to disentangle the cables. I noticed that two pins on the PATA interface were bent, so I replaced that hard drive with another whose pins were in better condition. I made sure the power and data cable connections were secure and reassembled the case.

 

Then I tried to install Windows again with the same result. I tried the 32-bit Windows in case the CD was not bootable because it was 64-bit, but 32-bit was no better. Then I wondered if I was making a mistake in installing Windows. I looked up the installation directions and found that I was supposed to turn off the computer after inserting the installation disk. When I turned it on again, it booted from the installation disk. There were no more problems from that point on.