So I tried the loopback test and got nothing. The led's didn't come on didn't get an echo (i have echo char locally off) I tried powering it by battery and by the small power for the floppy drive with the PSU. When I connect everything up with the hard drive the tx led lights up solid. I get gibberish until the grounds are connected, still can't get a prompt from it though. Is the nokia cable easier to do this with or does anyone know of a rs232 to ttl that already has the pins soldered to the board. The one I have is this RS232 Shifter SMD sku: PRT-00449 from spark fun elec. I'm thinking that something is wrong with the board, maybe when it got soldered.