dead motherboard or hard drive?

the other day my case was open and the pc was on and i acidentally dropped a screw into the case restating the computer now its a week later and i just tried to turn it on, cause i was doing some mods, but now it says that there is no hard drive. The power is fine, im just wondering if the socket to plug the drive into is broken or the harddrive its self.

update: it appears when my cd drive is plugged into the secondary ide slot it wont start. ive tried switching the plugs and removing the power from the cd drive. So it appears my compter doesnt like both ide slots being used. Can this be explained?

Have you tried using another cable to connect the CDROM?
When you dropped the screw in, was it on? Did you turn it on with the screw in? Do you know if the screw could have shorted something out?

As for this behavior being explained, no. But I know the feeling. I had ordered a modular PSU and they switched the 12v and 5v on one of the extensions. I plugged it into a HDD and it died and took the Primary IDE with it. Secondary IDE worked, but primary was toast. That motherboard lasted about another 18 months, matter of fact it just gave up 2 weeks ago. I have an Asus P4P800 waiting to go into that case (have for about 8 months) so I just have to get to it. :D

If everything else seems fine, just get a PCI IDE Controller and use that.

aw man, your awesome. I used a different cable and everything works perfect. Is the cable i was using broken. This had never happened before i dropped the screw in. And yes the computer was on and it restarted my pc.

Take that old cable and toss it in the garbage. I have found that anytime you work on your PC and touch the cables, there is a chance that will be the time one of those teeny tiny wires inside will decide to snap. Can't tell you how many times I have had that happen. :D

I can tell you how many times that has happened to me. Zilch. Never.

But then again.... my mobo did die out, so I guess I'll never know now :D

When you been around computers as long as this old man has, there are very few things you havne't seen. :D

my mobo bytes. Gigabyte did something wrong when designing it and if you try to use the front USB ports....*psssshhh* gone.