I recently built a pc for the first time but I am having a problem getting it started. When I powered it up for the first time it appeared as if the cd drives, and hard drive were not gettting power even though the power supply was working because the cpu fan was spinning. However I realized that when I unpluged the IDE cable from the back of the hard drive and cd drive the power returned to them. When I replugged the cables the drives no longer worked. Does anyone have any suggestions on how I can fix this?

make sure you have the cables inserted in the correct direction. Red line in pin one, pin one should be towards the power conectors on the ide drives if I'm not mistaken and marked on the motherboard. You may want to try another cable just to make sure the one you have is good. Also make sure the jumpers are set correctly.

I'll get back in a moment with some advice on troubleshooting, but I want to get this posted as soon as possible....

It sounds like you're unplugging and plugging in drives while powered-up...this is not a good thing to be doing...you can fry components. :(

Basic startup procedure for a new build is to place the Motherboard, RAM, Video Card, and CPU onto a piece of cardboard Connect only keyboard. Connect your monitor so you'll be able to determine if you are able to get video.

If all goes well, add one component at a time beginning with the floppy...it's much easier to troubleshoot going this route. After adding each component boot only long enough to see video.

Be sure to power down completely before adding components. ESDs (electrostatic discharges)can fry components quite easily...it takes 2000 Volts for us to feel a discharge...only round 200 to fry a component. :(

Try booting the 'puter with the bare minimum as suggested in the earlier posts. If you had connected both the HDD and the optical drive as "Master", the system may not boot. Configure the jumpers correctly and it should boot.


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Argue against <font color="green"><b>Facts</b></font> and not <font color="crimson"><b>Opinions</b></font><b>.</b>

it sounds to me that you had the ribbon cables plugged in incorrectly.red stripe on cable toward the 4 prong power plug.
also make sure of the jumper settings on the back of the hard drive and the cd rom drive. hardrive should be set to master, cd drive set to slave. that is if both drives are running off the same ribbon cable.