[sneaky_pete]

I went to my buddy's house last night to install a new hard drive.. thought my old drive fried on me...

here is what happened before..

I would run my computer.. everything was fine.. the next day I went to turn it on and it came up.. "primary hard drive not found.. press f2 to reboot"

and i would get that message over and over and over..

So.. I take my old hard drive out.. put in the new one.. drop in a windows 98 disc, boot up and format the disc with 98.. everything is going good.. then we started putting in drivers... "driver installed, restart computer for changes to take effect..." ok so restart.. "primary hard drive not found.....(oh crap!) but then.. the system boots up.. and runs ok... hmm. wonder what that was all about.. install another driver.. restart.. primary hard drive not found... and it continues to be lost! brand new hard drive!!

ok... so we swap out the connector cables.. (whatever they are called) and we try to start the computer again... primary hard drive not found.....
over and over.. so.. my buddy fiddles around in the registry? or something.. and he tries to get the computer to find the hard drive.. but everything he tried failed....

dont know exactly what he did.. (im not too computer smart)

ok so then, just for giggles.. we slap the OLD hard drive back into the computer... primary hard drive not found.. uh.. uh.. wait.. ok I guess we found it... and now my old hard drive is working again... but for how long??? who know..

anyways.. anyone have any ideas other then demonic possesion about what is going on with my computer??

later

Sneak

 

[downest]

[whisper]
get linux...
[/whisper]

 

[Pag]

well Bill Gates is quite possibly the devil, so that could explain demonic possession.

wish i could be helpful.

on the bright side MacOS is coming to a intel chip near you.

 

[Jonny_Black]

sounds like the mother board to me

 

[bobski]

Yeah, it sounds like the motherboard is having problems. You might want to try a different ATA controller first... As in a third-party PCI card. If it turns out to be a bigger problem than that and you need a new motherboard, you could always do a RAID array afterwards.

 

[invalidcomfort]

Make sure the jumpers are right on the actual drive itself. Sometimes they don't come in as master drives, and the motherboard just recognizes them as slaves, hence the "primary drive not found"

You could reset your bios aswell, that might help. (Pull the battery out of the motherboard with the power disconnected and wait a couple of minute before you put it back in. I'm not 100% sure that it resets the bios, but I'm alittle sure)

 

[toxiclows]

what brand of hard drive did you put in it? i have had problems with different drives jumper settings..... . . sometimes the factory " single settting" would not work as the bios would time out watiing for the drive to spool.. you would need to jumper it to master... to get it to work....
it really does sound like a motherboard....
just for fun and giggles. . . . take the ram and all of your pci/ agp cards out and clean the contacts with a pencil eraser.... 9 prob not going to fix it but not a bad idea since you are in there anyway..

i would suspect the motherboard... sounds like the hard drive contaoller on the board is going bad... . . .yeah you could get a pci hard drive controller. . .but you can pick up new motherboards so cheap that it is hardly worth it. . .
check with newegg.com
and see what they have for you. ..
if you need help pm me. . . . . .i do this crap all day.. .

Chris

 

[brx017]

I doubt its the OS, since it did the same thing on a fresh install... but now is better than ever to try Linux! www.mepis.org is a good place to start.

Since it was doing all that with both HD's, its not their problem.

Since you changed the cables, thats not the problem.

I, too, would say you've got a MOBO problem. Same thing has happened to me before.Check newegg.com or tigerdirect.com, you can get a new one for under $50 if you're on a budget.

The only other thing I could think of trying would be to go into the BIOS and somewhere there should be a "RESTORE DEFAULT SETTINGS" or something of that nature. Try that, and if it still doesnt work, its new MOBO time.

Let us know how it works out, Sneak.

 

[crxfisher]

Yep, it definitely sounds like a motherboard/drive controller problem. Like someone else said, you could possibly get a PCI hard drive controller to fix it. Also, you don't want to try Linux until all your hardware problems are fixed.

 

[shadowcrx]

gasoline + Lighter = good time

 

[brx017]

Also, you don't want to try Linux until all your hardware problems are fixed.

True...

 

[Kain]

anyone run XandrOS? i've had pretty good luck with it. runs america's army right out of the box and that's key 8)

 

[sneaky_pete]

Ok guys.. First of all THANK YOU so much for all the help.. I really am pretty lost when it comes to this stuff.

You dont know how many times Ive wanted to go "Office Space" on my computer!

ok here is my question.. I have a Dell.. "dude I gots a dell!"

so Im pretty sure the way they are put together at the factory screws me from taking the mother board out... everything is all integrated.. my network card,, all of that...

I do have a seperate sound and video card.. and I can see where my slots are for my ram.. ( I am learning a little )

but here is the weird thing... I plugged the thing in again today.. and the charter guy came over... and its been working great all day...

Im now out of dial up hell.. im running 3 meg high speed baby!!

but for how long... dont know how long this fun is going to last...

maybe its time to look into buying a new computer.. check that.. Im going to BUILD my own compter!!! anyone down to help me on this???

best way to learn... tear it down and BUILD it yourself!

how hard can it be really??? ( famous last words! )

thanks for all the help guys..

sneak

 

[crxfisher]

How old is that Dell of yours? I guess the warranty is up? It couldn't hurt to call them up and see.

 

[downest]

If you build your own, you should seriously consider Linux. There are a lot of versions you can run that will be just as easy to use as Windows. Oh yeah, did I mention... IT'S ALL FREE.

 

[brx017]

Sneak, what is the model number of your PC? I'll try to get some info on its MOBO. Eventhough it has a lot of integrated stuff, it shouldnt be hard to find a compatible aftermarket Mobo.

You'll enjoy building a new computer. It can be frustrating, but its fun. Its the best way to learn. Are gonna do a "rebuild" and keep some of your existing stuff, or build a 2nd machine?

 

[jvillarr]

same thing happened to me on my Gateway.

I unplugged the speakers from the back and the next day I turned it on it would give a boot error. I checked the hd connections and evey thing seem find. I took the jumper off and out it back the same way. And for some strange reason it boot it up normally.

i don't thinks the MB. The only thing I can think of is... probably somthing got currupted when i unpluged the speakers with th pc on. maybe the sound card got out of place or ay other card.

I would also check,organize and reroute all the cables that are running from the back of the pc. make sure everything is turned off for a few minutes to make sure all the power has completely gone down.

If you find out what it is let us know.

Good Luck!

JV

 

[sneaky_pete]

Well, when I had it apart. I did check all the wires etc to see if anything was loose. All of that seemed to check out ok.

So far, I havent had any trouble since I turned on my computer wednesday. I havent turned it off since.. I figure if its running.. might as well leave it be.

When my buddy and I were trying to install the new hard drive, we did search around to see what kind of hardware I had in my computer.. Its a dell dimension 8100. if that helps any..

I will probably end up building my own computer.. I'll start piecing it together over time, or do it sooner if I need too.. But for right now, I think the only things Im going to save from my current computer, would be the 2 hard drives.. 120 gig, and 160 gig.. my video card, its a nvidia? I guess its pretty good.. I dont play too many games on this, but it seems to do a good job video wise... I will save my dvd/cd burner and use it for a backup. I want to get a faster burner, and possibly a dvd burner..

I guess I might be able to keep the board the ram is on?
I will definitely be getting a new sound card.. I need one with RCA inputs/outputs.

Im trying to build a music machine.. there is a program that we use at our radio station that really kicks ass.. its called Maestro. I want to be able to run that on my machine, plus be able to plug in my mixer, and run outputs to my mixer.. I need ALOT of memory.. so with 120 and 160 gig hard drives.. I should have enough space.. my board that holds my ram has 4 slots in it.. I think I can hold up to 2 gigs of ram? now all i need to do is get a sweet mother board.. I have a pentium 4 in mine now.. I dont know if they have anything better out or not..

I have also heard about running dual cpu's? or over clocking? probably way above my head right now...

anyways.. im way open to suggestions.

Thanks again everyone

Sneak