Primary Master Hard Disk Error

Guapa1

Hi guys,
My mums PC comes up with this message before it boots up

It has a load of other information about the BIOS system, and then says press <del> to run setup. When I do that all I can press is ESC then it says:

'Reboot and select proper boot device or insert boot media in selected boot device.

When I do that it goes back to the 1st screen.

Any advice?

Thanks in advance.

amcluesent

>Any advice?<

Do you have all your photos and documents backed up or are they sitting on that disk?

Guapa1

My mum has her music backed up, but not the photos... Oh dear.... Is it that bad?

amcluesent

Do you know anyone who is handy with PCs? What I'd do is take the disk out the PC and install as the 2nd/slave disk in another PC or put in a USB caddy and then investigate if any personal data could be recovered.

Browntoa

worth opening up the PC and checking that none of the hard disk cables are loose

Browntoa

then download UBCD and burn to a cd on another machine , boot the faulty PC with the CD and then run CHKDSK on the disk if it detects ok

http://richardrudek.spaces.live.com/blog/cns!8B65F3DE0BE797AA!327.entry?sa=628852594

download here

ISO
Older Geeks

Guapa1

amcluesent wrote: »

Do you know anyone who is handy with PCs? What I'd do is take the disk out the PC and install as the 2nd/slave disk in another PC or put in a USB caddy and then investigate if any personal data could be recovered.

I'll be happy to have a go myself, sure I can find a video on how to remove a hard disk on youtube or video jug.

Browntoa wrote: »

worth opening up the PC and checking that none of the hard disk cables are loose

I've had a look and they look loose, but don't have anything to compare it to. The cd drive doesn't open.

The thing is knackered, but for some reason she won't let it go.

KillerWatt

The computer has already explained the problem (it can't find the primary boot drive at hardware level).
If the drive is connected correctly (which it more than likely is unless someone has been messing about internally), then that message means the drive is fubared (along with the data on it).

googler

It won't BOOT from the hard drive, but it's perfectly feasible that it may be readable when installed as a secondary, in a caddy, where the boot sector isn't being accessed.....

Guapa1

The English teacher in me couldn't resist looking up fubared as I've never seen it before... LOL.

KillerWatt

googler wrote: »

It won't BOOT from the hard drive, but it's perfectly feasible that it may be readable when installed as a secondary, in a caddy, where the boot sector isn't being accessed.....

The BIOS error message "Primary Master Hard Disk Error " means the computer cannot detect the drive full stop...it has failed at HARDWARE level.