# White Box with Burn Marks on it



## mazgreen (Feb 14, 2008)

I have a Dell Dimension 8400 (i have 2 actually) its 3 years and 3 weeks old, 3 weeks out of warrenty.
2 weeks ago it wouldn't turn on and the light up light was amber. I rang Dell who were very good and had me opening it up and systemattically unplugging and plugging things back in. then testing.
On the motherboard (i think) i was asked to unplug a small white box that has 2 yellow wires and 2 black going into it. When i unplugged it there was burn damage to the plastic and 2 of the metal conecters. I told the Dell man and he said to plug it back in and test it - It worked and he said it was fixed as much as we could as it was 'out of warrently'

Its worked on and off since and I have managed to get some of my stuff off the pc - my question is can I take the hard drive out (as it have my banner maker, my outlook etc) and put it in my other dimension 8400. 

I'm really not sure what to do


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## Blue Zee (May 18, 2007)

Yes, you can slave that HDD to any working desktop PC.

First set it as slave using the jumpers on the back of the HDD. A few examples:

Seagate jumper settings:









Maxtor jumper settings:









Western Digital jumper settings:









Shut down the working PC, unplug it from the mains, open the case, touch the metal case to avoid static and then connect the Slave HDD to the middle plug on the IDE ribbon of the working PC, as shown here:










Plug in the power supply cable, firmly secure the slaved HDD to a free slot in the case.
Close the box, plug it back and power up.

If everything on the Bios is on auto, the new drive should be recognized and you will have a drive D: when you access My Computer.

See if everything goes as swiftly as expected.

Good luck.

Zee


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## mazgreen (Feb 14, 2008)

Thanks Blue Zee,

So with my (very limited) PC knowledge you are saying that I can take HDD (hard drive) out of broken PC then put in in other PC without taking the good PCs HDD out. 
So the original PC becomes the master (c Drive) and the one from the broken PC the slave(d drive).
I could do that - the wires and stuff don't scare me - Dells are quite good everything pops out and slips back in.
So which bit of the PC is the Hard Drive??

cheers


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## Blue Zee (May 18, 2007)

If you don't know the Hard Disk Drive, I wonder how safe this can be, even if it is soooo simple...

An HDD:









Zee


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## mazgreen (Feb 14, 2008)

oh yee of little faith - I just wanted a pointer 
The Dell have lots of stuff you can pull out and put back in. I replaced a disk drive once that they sent me - this can't be much harder.
As i open the clamshell - its on the bit that swings under the Disk Drive and the floppy drive.
I'll let you know 

Thanks

Marie


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## Blue Zee (May 18, 2007)

Listening Marie...

Good luck.


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