Unknown Boot up Fault

[#1]

ok, the latest... I took out and reseated the graphics card and also took out the CMOS battery and put it back again.
Tried booting and it did allow me to go into bios but no HDD was detected.
I then tried the cables again to make sure they were on properly and then tried rebooting again...nothing, black screen again.
Tried again but black screen.
I opened my other pc to see if I could test the HDD on it but it does not have the Sata cable option only connects via IDE cable.
Just one other observation, the HDD I'm trying to test does not have any jumpers on it at all unlike the HDD in my other PC which connects via an IDE cable.
This gets more and more frustrating...

[#2]

at a pinch you could try one of these http://www.maplin.co.uk/Search.aspx?menuno=84399

[#3]

Thanks Pierre but I'd rather buy a new mother board if that was were the problem lay.
I'd prefer to eliminate all possibilities without having to fork out too much at this stage.... we are in a credit crunch 

[#4]

Quote from: pierre_pierre

at a pinch you could try one of these http://www.maplin.co.uk/Search.aspx?menuno=84399

On second thoughts I may as well go and get one.
Is this what you would recommend for a Maxtor SATA Diamond Max 10 200gb 3.5 series
http://www.maplin.co.uk/Module.aspx?ModuleNo=222999

[#5]

for the same price this one also a card reader - http://www.maplin.co.uk/module.aspx?moduleno=226653  both USB to any other PC, I currently have four 2.5 with discs from old laptops

[#6]

Quote from: pierre_pierre

for the same price this one also a card reader - http://www.maplin.co.uk/module.aspx?moduleno=226653  both USB to any other PC, I currently have four 2.5 with discs from old laptops

I was in Maplin's yesterday ready to buy the docking station without the card reader etc as I hadn't seen your post yet.
I ended up buying a UNITEK model which does pretty much the same with 2 usb ports, card reader etc but I'm not entirely happy with it.
When I plug in my primary drive windows explorer detects 4 removable disks but not one works.
The same happens when I plug in the secondary drive but this time I also get one taht says BACKUP DRIVE which does read the drive.
It allseems a bit tacky but maybe I'm misjudging it.
Do you know anything about this model?
http://www.tech-top.com.hk/product.php?cat_id=62
It's the Y-1040B
Should I take it back and get the one you've recommended.

[#7]

I think you will find it is detecting the other ports but since you have no media in them (I assume) it is not reading them, the dearest one of mine and the original is an Xs Drive II, which has its own internal battery and a small screen, it is/was intended to read cards and transfer the contents to the internal HD, it reads MS, SD, MMC, SMC, CF cards and has USB link to PC, the card sockets come up on the Win Explorer even when empty

[#8]

ok, thanks for that.
It does seems slower to access the working HDD than when it was installed in the PC.
I thought this would be the case even though the shop assistant said it would be the same speed 
Would it be ok to burn to DVD from this HDD in the docking Station?

[#9]

USB2 is fairly fast but not as fast as a directly linked HD, and yes you can treat it as if it is an internal disc

[#10]

thanks for that, i feel a bit more confident now.