Reformatting.. HD not detected?

So I'm reformatting Windows XP.  And my Hard Drive isn't detected.  Here's the scoop:

Got a new PSU, plugged it in.  The 24-pin goes into the motherboard.  There's a square-ish 4-pin that I also plugged into the motherboard.  I have no idea what it does (enlighten me), but it fits there so I put it in.  I plugged a 4-pin into the CD-ROM drive.  I plugged a flat pin thingy into the Hard Drive.

From the Hard Drive, there's a smaller blue flattish thing going to the corner of the motherboard.  There's an unused space on the Hard Drive, looks like an 8-pin thingy.  No idea what should go there.

So, uhh... what am I doing wrong?

hard drive should have two thingies plugged into it.  one ribbonny thingie what plugs into the motherboard (or hd controller card which you probably don't have) and one power cabley thingie what plugs into the power supply.  these things usually only plug in one way, otherwise the red wires usually end up facing each other.

if your hard drive isn't being detected, it's possible that the cables aren't plugged in properly.  unplug and replug them in (including the end what's attached to the motherboard) and see if that helps.  ide cables are notorious for getting loose while fiddling with other stuff, at least in my experience.

also possible that the power supply itself is gummed up.  try a different power plug.

is the power supply providing enough power to run the whole system?  if it's rated for equal or higher than your old power supply, should be fine.

other than that, nothing i can think of unless you added more new hardware, blew up your BIOS settings, or your hard drive coincidently broke down at exactly the same time for no apparant reason.

My old PSU was a Dell Stock 300V.  When I tried to reformat my PC with Ubuntu Linux, the PSU died.  It seemed like something burned : /  The new PSU I bought is a Rosewill 500V, so it's got enough power.

I suspected that the PSU may have melted my Hard Drive with it.  Is the Hard Drive the first to go when a PSU fries?

>>3
not necessarily the first, but it is a possiblity.  if there was a power spike when the PSU went kaput, it would have unpredictable results on any hardware attached to it.

Been checking the Dell forums, and it looks like it's that the Dell motherboard can't detect a Hard Drive bceause of lack of drivers.  And I'll never get them, because I lost my Dell Resource Disk and they won't replace it unless I renew my warranty.  And, my Dimension 4700 doesn't have a floppy drive.

I think I may need to buy a new motherboard.

Dude, you got a Dell

Rosewill PSUs are not reliable, I hear. Get Antec, OCz, Epower/Tagan, Enermax, PC Power&Cooling. Also, THINGIEEEEESSSSSS????. Also, make sure your motherboard doesn't have IDE channels that are used only for RAID. And last but not least, did you move jumpers around?

"can't detect a Hard Drive bceause of lack of drivers" - that's something I'd expect to heat on fucking DELL forums all right.

>>5
if your hard drive isn't being detected by the bios, the problem is likely hard drive failure or >>2.  if the bios picks up the hard drive, but a fresh install of Windows doesn't, the problem is probably drivers.  the concept of the problem being drivers, however, seems unlikely unless you have some bizarre alien hardware installed instead of a motherboard.