master drive problem

[006agent]

i keep getting an error. " primary master drive failure "

i am running an abit kt7 with duron 700

have hdd on ide1
no cdrom installed.

floppy on same power connector.

tried auto detect, but will only detect half of info.

please help.

 

[damien6]

Is the jumper on the HD set correctly.

 

[thorin]

1) Check the jumper settings.
2) Try a different cable.
3) What drive is it?
3a) Are you using a ATA66 or ATA33 cable?
3b) Is the drive already partitioned and formatted? (previous to this system)

Thorin

 

[006agent]

the drive is previously formated. using ata66 cable. tried two different ones

a friend said the boot record is messed up

what do you all think

 

[thorin]

1) Instead of using AutoDetect set it up manually in the BIOS.
2) Try it in another system.

Thorin

 

[nortexoid]

do what thorin said - manually set parameters...
if it doesn't work - try it another system
if that doesn't work - it's toast...i should think.

unless u can find a board w/ a bios that will detect it and
perhaps low-level format it - which isn't exactly the best thing
for the drive, but it's better than not functioning at all...

lastly, hit it hard so the heads get messed up and return it under
warranty...similar ot how i dropped my maxtor drive on the ground
and thereafter it screetched - i returned it and got a new drive.
quite promptly too...

maxtor has a good warranty policy...but i've noticed my maxtor drives fail more often than other brands.

 

[thorin]

"...but i've noticed my maxtor drives fail more often than other brands."

Yup especially when people are dropping them all the time. But seriously Quantum has (had) some of the most reliable drives on the market so the next series from Maxtor (or maybe the one after) should have all of Quantum's DataProtection and Shock Proofing right? (Now that the companies are one)

Thorin

 

[jbird]

Make sure you have the end connector on the ribbon cable that is closest to the middle connector hooked up to the hard drive. I just experienced a similar problem. I had the hard drive connected to the middle (not the usual hookup) connector and the cd rom drive disconnected. Win98 gave me a drive not recognized and said that I might have a virus in the FAT. As soon as i hooked the cd rom up to the end connector (not the usual config), to os booted right up as if nothing was wrong.