Primary Disk not found ...F1 to continue

[danomaniac]

Hello all,
I have two pc's on my network that have recently started giving me a 'Primary disk not found' error (not at the same time, about a month apart) and prompts me to hit f1 to continue. I do, and they both boot fine. One is running NT and the other is 2K (and a dell that's less than 2 yrs old). The 2K machine also boots horribly slow, runs slow, and reboots itself about every other day.

Any suggestions?
Thanks

"It's more like it is now, than it ever has been."

 

[ski]

It's possible that the HD's are failing. Run diagnostics on them from the HD manuf's site.

 

[aznluvsmc]

Also check the IDE cable to try and rule that out as a probable cause.

Steven S.
MCSA
A+, Network+, Server+, i-Net+

 

[danomaniac]

Thanks for the suggestions.

Would an IDE cable suddenly just go bad? It never gets touched or moved? Especially since it's less than 2 yrs old sitting in a climate controlled room? I'll check them just to be sure.

"It's more like it is now, than it ever has been."

 

[aznluvsmc]

Yes IDE cables go bad for more reasons then I can think of. Very common issue.

Steven S.
MCSA
A+, Network+, Server+, i-Net+

 

[aznluvsmc]

Are we able to edit our posts? My grammar is really bad.

Steven S.
MCSA
A+, Network+, Server+, i-Net+

 

[Naujes28]

I had a similar problem I built 4 Identical PC's one of them gave me a disk failure after installing the O/S.

I tried switching the IDE cables and hardrives(identical mother boards)and got the same message.

Whent to the Bios boot sequence and changed it from HDD 1 to HDD 0 and it gave me the same message you got.

Now when I reboot my PC I get an error message Primary HDD not detected hit F1 to continue and it boots up.

Now I don't have a solution but my guess it's got to do with the IDE controller or a dammaged motherboard.

 

[danomaniac]

Thanks all who posted. I resolved my issue...upgraded to XP. I had tried swapping IDE cables with no effect. I upgraded to XP and everything worked fine - I have trouble believing it was hardware related (except maybe a boot sector thing) if installing a new OS fixed it. Oh well. Thanks again.

"It's more like it is now, than it ever has been."