I think I shorted something out, please help

Hello, I am wondering if anyone out here can try and help me with this.

Tonight my boyfriend was cleaning the inside of our computer with an air compressor so we had the side panel taken off. I went to put the side panel back on not realizing the computer was turned on. When I went to connect the two cables that are on the door that come out of the door fan, it sparked and shorted out and the computer turned itself off. The power supply seems to be OK, I can get the computer to turn on if I leave the cables disconnected. The computer will boot, I can access BIOS and the Windows loading screen will come up, but after a minute or two...nothing. I am assuming this is because one or both og the hard drives are not hooked up. If I try and hook either or both of those cables back up the computer will not turn on at all. My question is this....is it the cables themselves that are messed up, where I could buy new connectors and it would be ok? Or is the hard drive(s) that are messed up? In BIOS it shows only one of the hard drives as being connected, but I don't know which one. It no longer shows them as Master and Slave, just shows it on a line above that. I have tried the reset power button and disconnecting the whole computer from power for a long time, to no avail.

Here is my lame attempt at describing where the cables that come from the fan are supposed to attach to, and where those cables originate from:

The cables coming out of the fan end in white rectangular connectors that have four pins that click into four holes, there is one male version and one female version. There are black and red wires leaving the fan and ending in one of the white connectors. That white connector has black, red and yellow wires leading to the second white connector.

It is hard to tell where the wires inside go since they are all pulled together with a plastic tie, but as far as I can tell, the cables inside of the computer go like this (these are the cables that the ones on the side panel are supposed to plug into):

One cable (call it A) starts at the back of the first hard drive (call it C). It is connected to the hard drive with a black rectangular connector. This cable leaves the hard drive and ends in a white four pin connector, that normally attaches to the female end of the same connector that comes out of the side panel. I *think* this is the one that controls the fan. As reference, the other plug in the back of the hard drive next to it is a thick red wire that has a smaller black connector that says Serial ATA on it and it comes in from the motherboard.

The other cable (call it B) starts from my video card AND the hard drive. The one coming from the video card seems to be permanently attached(?) and leads to what looks like a splitter for these cables. Coming out of the "splitter" are 8 wires instead of 4. 4 of the wires lead to the empty female end of the white connector that should be attached to the side panel. The other four lead into the back of the second hard drive (call it D), and is the same type I described above.

My main questions are: Is it possible that just the cables are meesed up and I could get new cables? Could the power supply be shot even though I can get the computer to turn on? Could the hard drive be ruined and the data lost from this? What is my next step?

This probably does not make any sense and I am sure someone would have to actually see my computer physically to help me out, but I thought it was worth a shot. I may have someone who will come and look at it tomorrow. Thank you for any and all advice, and thanks for reading this!

My specs:

Custom built computer
2.8 gHz Pentium 4
1024mb RAM
D865PERL Intel motherboard
x2 Seagate Barracuda SATA hard drives 160GB each
Gainward Nvidia X5900XT 256mb video card
ATX 12v 420 watt power supply
Scorpio 668wb case
Windows XP Pro

 

your power supply is ok as you can get the pc to start
you've probally went to connect the wires in the wrong holders
something has blown
your power supply is defenatly ok
when you put the wires back into your hard drives make sure you put them into the correct HD.s and the ribbon the right way around as if this is put in the wrong way around it wont even start

 

Hello,

At first I thought I tried to put them in wrong too, but I checked and they cannot go in the wrong way, the connectors would not fit together like that, since it would be a male to male and female to female connection. So I think it happened just because I did it while the computer power was on, which was SO stupid.

Everything is connected correctly other than the the two cables leaeing from my side panel fan and the ones they connect to inside, I know this for sure because I have not touched anything else. When I connect those cables correctly the computer shorts out again. Like it starts up for half a second and then goes off. Hopefully, my friend that built the computer is going to come look at it for me tomorrow night, he thinks I might've fried one of the hard drives.

Here's a question...if I fried the hard drive would it still run? Because both hard drives come on and make noise like they are working. Just wondering if that means the data is ok, probably hard to tell without checking for sure.

Thanks for your help!

 

are the fans whiring around when you start up the pc
if not its them that has gone and the processor wiil then get too hot and the mainboard will click itself off then

 

Power supply has several 'rails', 3.3v for processor, 5v for M/B and PCI cards, 12V for Drives. I think you have blown the 12V rail. I would try a new Power supply.

KCL

 

Oh, maybe that's it! The fans do come on when the computer starts up, and they work fine, so long as those two cables from the side panel fan are NOT plugged in. Thanks, I still have not been able to have my friend who built it look at it to see. I would rather have it be the power supply than the hard drive any day!