Well, I think tracer dodged the bullet on this one.

I had my first look at his unit here today, and the IDE header had the classic appearance of one in the process of being torn off the mainboard by the too-short IDE cable. It is now reattached firmly, but to prevent messier future repairs I think some cable slack is needed.

If this is a one-drive unit, then just plug the drive onto the END of the ribbon cable rather than in the (factory) middle location -- best way to achieve this is to move the drive to the left hand bay before reassembly.

If it's a two drive unit, then a longer IDE cable is needed.

Cheers