Member Avatar for Joexv

I have a dell dimension 8250 that I've had for quite a while. Up until now I've been able to fix all of its problems but I was swapping out a hard drive and I accidently pulled out half of the power cord and the computer short circuited and it took about 5 minutes till I could boot it but when I booted it it couldn't find my hard drives at all. I've tried doing a forced IDE config I've switched the hard drives and switched the power supply. The bios menu still shows that I have all my ram. I've also tried taking out the little battery and vacuuming out my system and power supply. But I've only been able to get 2 hard drives found on a vista installation disk but it couldn't install onto them. And now it can't find my disk drives now.
I would really like to know what's going on and how to fix it.

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Dani AI

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Given the short at the drive power cable and the fact already tried different drives and a replacement PSU, the most likely problem is damage to the motherboard’s drive I/O or the board’s power traces feeding the drive connectors. That lines up with what and suggested, but there's a practical checklist you can run through before deciding on replacement or professional repair.

  • Safety first: unplug power, ground yourself, and work on a non‑conductive surface.
  • Visual inspection: look for melted plastic, burn marks, or bulging/leaking capacitors around the drive connector and southbridge/IDE area.
  • CMOS reset: remove the coin cell, press the front power button for 10–15 seconds to discharge, wait 10–15 minutes, then reinstall and try again.
  • Minimal boot: disconnect every nonessential device (optical, extra HDDs, cards). Connect one known‑good drive to the first data port with a different data cable and try BIOS detect.
  • Verify drives externally: attach each drive to a working PC with a USB‑to‑SATA adapter or put it in an external enclosure and run the vendor diagnostics (Seagate SeaTools, WD Data Lifeguard) to check SMART and surface. If the drives are healthy when connected to another machine, the Dell’s motherboard/controller is almost certainly the issue.
  • Bypass the onboard controller: if the board otherwise boots, a cheap PCI/PCIe SATA controller card will let you access internal drives without replacing the motherboard.

If external tests show unreadable drives, stop and consider professional data recovery. If drives work externally but the Dell still won’t see them even after the CMOS reset and minimal-boot checks, the practical options are a replacement/used motherboard (often not worth it on very old systems) or a controller card/enclosure as a low‑cost workaround. When you take it to a shop, tell them exactly what you’ve tried (new PSU, multiple drives, CMOS battery removal) so they don’t repeat tests you’ve already done.

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Member Avatar for rubberman

I strongly suspect you have fried your controller, or the drives. Have you tried another drive to see if it is recognized?

Member Avatar for BigPaw

When you say that you pulled out half of the power cord, do you mean the power cord that connects to the Power Supply Unit (PSU) at the back of the computer? If that is what you are saying then it may only be your PSU that has been damaged and not the rest of your computer.

Member Avatar for Joexv

I've tried different hard drives and disk drives and even new cords but it still won't work. No it was the cord plugged into the hard drive

Member Avatar for BigPaw

Do you have another PSU you could try? I wouldn't be surprised if the controller on that one drive has burnt out, typically when they're shorted you see the chip glow red hot. (though only as it is happening) But, I have doubts about the other drives dying too.

It's up to you, but I would recommend trying another PSU if you have access to one.

Member Avatar for Joexv

I Reyes a new psu and had the same results. What glows red is its shorted? I couldn't see anything.

Member Avatar for Rik_

You have most likely damaged your chipset on your motherboard. With a fault like that, the only options you have is to take it to a repair shop or replace it with a new computer.

Member Avatar for BigPaw

Sorry, sorry, sorry, the comment about the chip glowing red was just my recalling a past experience. It wasn't relevant to your problem.

At this point I'd strongly recommend getting hold of some diagnostics software and give it a thorough check over, UBCD is a popular diagnostics option, but there are more out there.

Member Avatar for Joexv

How will I be able to run it on my computer?
Is there any major stores that will do it for free or cheap?

Member Avatar for Rik_

Is there any major stores that will do it for free or cheap?

Without knowing where you are in the world, that question is impossible to answer.

Member Avatar for Joexv

Oregon, usa

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