I'm thinking it's the drive cable getting jarred loose. ... but was just wondering if this is reflective of what one sees in this case.

Not usually. In my experience with loose drive cables, when a drive cable becomes disconnected, the display operates normally, displays the bootup logo -- and there it stops because it can't go any further without information from the hard drive.

It will do this even with no hard drive in the system at all.

Now, perhaps a partially disconnected connector (that is, some pins connected, some not) might provide other symptoms. (I did find out that installing the connector on the hard drive offset one pin to the left will leave the empeg completely dead, as though a fuse had blown or something.)

tanstaafl.



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