ERRR!! I am a happy hardware hacker. I make things run that all my freinds and peers would give up on. I am going to give up on my WebSurfer, I killed it and I have no idea how to fix it.
Let's start with some history. I got a WSP the day they where found to be 50 bucks, took it home and dove right in. Got my isa IDE contorller from a junk box and was booting into win98 in under 20 min. I had the harddrive connected to an old power supply that was sitting next to the WSP. OK, this all was fine and dandy but I wanted the drive INSIDE the case. So the hacking starts.
Cut me a hdd power cable from an old pwr supply and shoved it into the power cable in the mobo. Easy drive spins and win98 boots. I am thinking right on the power supply can handle it. I dig around and find a 2.5 ==> 3.5 drive cable connector and a 2.5gb 2.5 drive. use the cable out the back of the connector to test. It works. Great now 2.5gb is way to small so I need to use the 10bg 3.5 I have. Since the IDE card I installed was about 1 3/4 inch wide I had the room over the mobo to mount the fullsixe drive. Off to the metal shop. Have a buddy of mine make a mount plate and I install it. Great all works fine. I run it for a few days no problems.
I get home from work last Friday night itching to do some hacking... I decide that it would be a cool thing to pull the power cables from being shoved into the mobo power connector and connect the drive to the 12v power lead next to the power supply. I test this lead by switching the fan cable to it and boot. All is good. I switch it back and hit it with a voltmeter, I am golden here, it's what I am looking for. So I grab my sodering iron and find me an old fan to cut the line off of. Soder the two together and install the cable into the mobo and the hdd. hit the power and I get nothing. I smell smoke. I see smoke. I yank the power cord from the wall.
At this point I am wondering if I am an idiot and mixed my ground and hot wires, I take a look and nope nothing wrong. So I grab my other hhd power cable and shove it back in the mobo power connector. Swap the drive power source and hit the power button. Nothing.... damn forgot to plug it back in. Plug the damn thing back in and now I get a great screen of nothing. it will not post. IT IS DEAD and I have no clue how to even start debuging this, hey all you EE types out there did I just make a cool door stop or what?
