hi, i have a pismo, and thwhen the hard drive is connected, the computer dosen;t boot. The HD dosent spin up at all. I have tested this with may logic boards and i get the same problem which leade me to belive it is either the DC sound card board, or the PMU board. o, which board in the pismo provides the power for the hard drive?
thanks
eric
Gnomes.

Either they're dead or they've escaped. In the latter case... you're gonna have problems... missing change and jewelery... and once they get into the walls, they'll drive you nuts. If I were you, I'd put up a bunch of mouse traps with something shiny as bait before they start mutiplying, or you'll never get rif of them. Don't worry though. Given time, the garden variety hard drive gnome will eventually gourge himself so much on hot pocket crumbs that he'll grow to a monstrous size and will be able to move about as well as a lawn ornament, and that's when you've got him.
(Not to be confused with a troll, which is
another animal altogether. Shy and elusive
creatures, here's one hiding behind the spindle
of an early single platter drive.)
huh?
I was just playin'
But by keeping your post at the top of the Active forum topics list, I'm helping increase the chances that someone will come along who can actually help. (no need to thank me)
2.5" hard drives, in both PC world and Mac world, both IDE and SCSI, have a smaller connector than their 3.5" bretheren. If you look at 3.5" to 2.5" adaptors, you will notice a molex connector that goes into them. The actual single connector that goes into the 2.5" drive ALSO provides power as well as data. Laptop drives get electricity through the motherboard themselves, which gets it's electricity from the PSU.
*HOWEVER*, if the laptop drive is not spinning up, this can be several things other than something outside the hard drive. Ripped or worn IDE or SCSI cables can cause the drive to not spin up. The other thing is that the drive it's self has died.
Your usage of how the laptop drive is connected to the machine makes me think it might be external. What exactly is your drive configuration? And also, does the machine turn on perfectly fine when the drive is *not* connected? If the machine does not start up at all either way, I'd definately say it could be a logic/motherboard problem, or the PSU first of all.
I need more details to help better.
when nothing is connected to the hard drive cable, it works fine (like when it boots from cd or firewire)
the drive is good because ive tested it in an enclosure
ive used 2 different HD cables, and tried this with several different hard drives
Okay, so we can rule out the PSU and also the drive if you can mount the drive in an enclosure, and it actually turns on and runs without it. This leaves the motherboard and cable.
Now, if I'm not mistaken, laptop HD cables are still of the very thin ribbon type. Have you tried two different kinds of those, or two different kinds of the standard IDE-40/80 cable that you'd find in a desktop? If you've used several laptop style cables, and they both fail, and upon *visual inspection* appear to be perfectly fine, then I'd say something has gone wonky with your motherboard, specifically something in the IDE subsystem, or the connector for the IDE drive. However, Pismos I believe have a CD drive built in. If you can boot from it, or even use it at all, then the IDE subsystem must be fine, and must be some sort of connection problem between the laptop and the hard drive, either bent pins, a bad solder joint near the connector, or yet a bad IDE ribbon cable to the hard drive.
I'm seriously suspecting the IDE cable for the laptop right now. Also, could you make sure that the cable is not, by any chance, inserted UPSIDE DOWN? Unlike 3.5" drives, the 2.5" cables I don't think have the helpful notch on them to prevent them from being inserted the wrong way.
Get me more details about what IDE cables you used, and also try flipping the connector on the IDE cable. It could be something simple as that. ;X
well the pismo uses its own HD connector it does from the laptoop to this smaller connection. I have tried 2 of these pismo HD cables to no avail.
I am sure that the cable is in the right direction :), even when reversed, it has the same effect. I will try connecting a cdrom to the hd bus now.
-eric
well i dont have a cd rom to test with
but the internal cd rom from the pismo does work
and other harddrives connected to the HD cable yields the same results
This smaller connector that goes into the motherboard, check it. If it's the type that you slide in, and then clamp down, make sure it too is going the right way, and is free of debris.
Other than that, I'm not sure what else to offer as advice. I have no experience with that specific model, and nothing else comes to mind.