primary master hard disk fail -help

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. - not sure what this means or how to do it

albertross_2

Is the primary hard disk spinning? If you haven't done this already, try removing the flat ribbon cable from the secondary hard disk and CD/DVD drives, and boot.

Is the flat ribbon cable firmly seated in the motherboard?

When was the PC upgraded, if recently, then the drive jumpers may be responsible. Is the primary on the end of a ribbon cable, not in the middle. There should be a little jumper (connector) on the drive, usually there are 3 pins :::

sometimes 4, the connector needs to be across the master pin (usually there is a label on it). the order is usually
CSM
::: where m is master, but if there are 4 pins, it will be different, and there should be a sticker on it telling you which is which.

Sometimes, giving the primary hard disk a twist, flick of the wrist, in a horizontal plane can get it working again, but this is a last resort, and only usually works if you are getting a track 0 problem (with the disk making a clunking sound). If you are going down the last resort route, try this before dong the fridge trick. (Both are really last resorts !!, as they may cause further damage).

Fifer

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??

babiebeany wrote:

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.

So the BIOS is seeing neither of the two HDs? Has the Primary IDE cable come unseated from the motherboard?

leesmithg

Maybe trying the HD in another puter might tell a story.

Pitty_Fool

When i got this error last year i just held my HD in a different position. Try hold the drive horizontally or vertically and it might pick it up. Keep in mind the chances that you will have to buy a new HD are very high, if you get this drive working and dont replace there is a high chance it could happen again.

irnbru_2

Fifer wrote:

So the BIOS is seeing neither of the two HDs? Has the Primary IDE cable come unseated from the motherboard?

Either that or the controller has failed.

However, as the OP's secondary master is detected you can just plug the HDD in that instead and see if it boots.

Little_John

OK here goes, the drive is failing, you say you have 2 drives installed. is the other drive reconised by the bios?

You need to get your pc prepaired for a data transfer should the knackered drive come back to life. by that I mean disconnect both power and the data cable from the failing drive install windows on the other drive and get it up and running.
once that is done reconnect the failing drive and boot the pc hopfully the bios will detect the drive and windows will be able to see the drive and its contents. if not switch off and try again all we ned is for the drive to be available for a few minutes.

if you get to the stage it can be seen then create a folder on the new windows drive backup or somthing and copy the files accross to that folder, if you know your way arround the way windows xp stores files ect on a drive great if not just copy the user folders from the documents and settings this will copy my documents, favourites and email store files along with a load of other stuff.

Once you have the fies coppied accross then you can go about importing the email files and document files moved to the correct my documents folders.

If your unsucessfull at getting the drive reconised after say 30 minutes then it is time to try the drastic things like sticking the drive in the freezer and flicking it horizontally, short sharp shock (drop it from about 1" to a hard surface. these are normally ways of fixing a stuck drive where it is a problem with the mechanism inside and have been sucessfull for reovery of up to about 10 minutes. if is is an electrical problem then the only was of getting the data off the drive is to replace the circuit board with an exact replacement.

culpepper

Have you tried unplugging both hard drives from one IDE cable and plugging them both into the other one(where the cd drives are plugged in)?
Also try swapping the little power connectors over for either the ones on the CD drives or any spare ones hanging inside the case.
plug the cd drives into the other IDE cable.
Mine occassionally does not see the primary drive and it is just a case of me pushing the IDE cable into the motherboard more firmly.
if you do get back in,back up the essential stuff immediately onto cd or a pendrive. My DS uses a pendrive to take stuff to school and can read it on the school computer.

Flexible_Friend

Wise after the event I know but always take regular back ups of your important stuff. I lost 2 hard drives in a year and have learned my lesson. Back up to CD, DVD, external drives whatever. Hope there's a happy ending to this tale ....

babiebeany

We have certainly learned our lesson on backing up as there was a lot of info on that computer.

The thing will not even power up now, so we are going to get professional help to see what data we can save off it.