techrecovery | Jan. 3rd, 2006

Finally got the last parts for my new gaming PC this past week. The two parts I was able to get locally for a price that didn't actually make me cringe in pain were the heatsink (a nice, heavy aluminum heatsink), and the IDE cables. One of them was a belkin. I get home today and finally have time to install XP. I get the last of the cables hooked up and start her up. No IDE devices found.

Wha? o.O

I'm going nuts switching the cables around, reseating power cables, all that good stuff, but no dice. I flip through the BIOS to try to find what's going on... No IDE devices detected. Finally I pull the IDE cables off, and notice that the Belkin doesn't have the usual tab on it to ensure that it goes in with the correct orientation. Some genius at belkin decided that conforming to the IDE standard wasn't important enough to warrant the little tab that keeps you from doing anything stupid, like, say, putting the cable in upside down. Dammit.

Stupid standard-breakers.