That was easy!

So this [oldish] computer stopped booting properly about six months ago. It would start, but then mysteriously die during the sequence. I finally had a bit of time to check it out tonight, so I powered it up and noticed the POST would not only show a garbled version of "Maxtor" (and the model number), but also identify this 40 GB disk as about 8 GB. At this point, it would refuse to even boot and instead barf up with INVALID SYSTEM DISK, INSERT BOOT DISK AND HIT ENTER TO RETRY (or something just like it).

Anyway, I figured the hard disk wasn't that old and so I powered down and unplugged it. I noticed the ribbon cable wasn't quite straight (it was sort of folded onto itself, but not perpendicular to the wires), so being obsessive-compulsive as I usually am, I straightened it out, carefully plugged it back in and decided to give it a shot. Lo and behold, I'm blogging this from that computer.