I'm turning yet another Cobalt RaQ into a firewall. It requires the use of another PC (Personal Computer) (with a particular setup—basically, the Cobalt RaQ CD (Compact Disc) boots off a PC which enables you to to a network boot of the RaQ, and that boot will reformat and install the operating system on the RaQ) which I didn't have on Friday. I have (or rather, Wlofie [1] has) the proper setup at home, but when he did it, the install didn't care for the harddrive.
So now I'm at The Office. We dug out the computer I used to use for this (an older PC in a large case that sounds like a diesel truck that badly needs a tuneup). For the past two hours I've been trying a series of harddrives and none of them seem to work. I try different installation disks (thinking maybe one of them is bad) and still, none of the five harddrives I'm trying are working.
Then Smirk notices that the Cobalt RaQ has two IDE (Integrated Drive Electronics) cables. “Sean, humor me,” he said. “Try plugging the drive in the other cable.”
“I don't think it should matter,” I said, not noticing that I said The Word.
“But maybe it does.”
“Maybe,” I said, plugging the drive Smirk wanted to use in the other IDE cable.
It mattered.
It's now working.
Sigh.