primary master hard disk fail -help

babiebeany

Done that - yes I could hear a spinning type sound

babiebeany

no loose cables in there either

nickmack

Ok, it sounds like the Hard Disk is getting power and spinning up.

Oh yes, are there any other devices plugged into the same cable as that Hard Disk? CD/DVD drives? Another Hard Disk?

The problem could be with the cable, disk controller or the Hard Disk itself still.

The cable could be faulty on your PC, in this case it might need replacing. If there is another cable that connects to your CD/DVD drive, you could unplug this from the back of the drive and connect this to your Hard Disk instead. The cable has a coloured stripe down one side of it. This stripe should sit nearest to the power plug on the drive. It should plug in with a small amount of force. Don't push it hard if it will not go as you may bend the pins, make sure it fits in the right way with the connectors lined up.

Once you have connected it up, you need to plug in the cables to your PC (keyboard. mouse etc) and switch it on. You will probably need to go into the BIOS again and try and get it to detect the drive. However this time, the option you need to detect on is Secondary Master.

If this make no difference, Ideally what you need to do next is try and connect the Hard Disk to another PC and see if it is detected.

If it's not detected then it's likely there is a fault with the disk. You would need data recovery software or someone with such software in order to retrieve files from the disk.

Little_John

Hi sorry to butt in but if your in the manchester area I am offering to come and see if I can get the data off your drive.

the drive is in the process of failing quite along way in to it if your getting boot failures, the way nickmack is going about things is correct but as it is instructed on here can take some time and every minute the drive is powered up and in use can reduce any chance of getting the data of the drive. if you want me to come and see what I can do turn the PC off and send me a PM.

babiebeany

Thanks again for the advice - we actually have 2 hard disks in there as we had it upgraded and they are both connected to each other.

As for the amount of time the machine has been switched on in this state - it has been a good few hours on and off - as it did begin to work normally again at one point yesterday.

We are not at all local to Manchester - but thanks for your offer Little John

T4i

Had a p.c like this to be fixed last week. The BIOS had disabled its primary channel, only allowing secondary channel to work.

You can put your hard drive on the secondary as you know that channel is working with the CD-ROMs. See if BIOS picks it up.

Toxteth_OGrady

Might be time to try the freezer trick - stick the failing drive in a freezer bag and pop it in the freezer for a couple of hours. Refit to the pc and see if it boots. If it does copy all your important data files to your second hard drive. Then if the bad drive is holding out try to image it before it finally gives up the ghost (excuse the pun).

:cool:

TOG

leesmithg

How about checking in the bios that your hard drive is the first boot device.

Myself, I set mine as follows:

I use XP Pro SP2

n:b I suggest your floppy as first boot then CD Rom, Then Hard Drive if you use a d.o.s. based system such as 9X Me etc.

1st boot device: CD Rom Drive
2nd boot device: Hard Drive
3rd boot device: Find other boot device or Floppy
4th boot device: Disabled

Give that a whirl as I think it's maybe the problem.

T4i

babiebeany wrote:

Just let it try to boot up again as normal and the screen says:

Diskette drive a none
diskette drive b none
Pri master disk none
Pri slave disk none
Sec mawster disk dvd dma 2
Sec slave disk cd rw dma 2

Does this help??

Doesnt matter what order they are set if auto-detection won't pick the drive up. Cant really set an order for something thats not there lol

babiebeany

Getting a bit confused now - think I will have to get it professionally fixed. Won't help with the coursework issue though.

You can put your hard drive on the secondary as you know that channel is working with the CD-ROMs. See if BIOS picks it up.