Primary Master Drive Fail

[Guest]

Hi,
During the Post after detecting my drives(hard drive and cd drive, sometimes my hard disk is not detected) I get the error "Primary Master disk Fail". Then my computer locks up. This doesn't happen all the time every 3 to 10 boots. I moved the disk drive cable to the secondary ide and the problem moved to "Secondary Master disk fail".Im leaning towards a bad hard disk because ive been having problems with corrupt registrys and my system restore will not work. Any help would be appreciated.

System specs:
Athlon 1.33ghz 266fsb with cooling fan
Biostar m7mia motherboard
512mb crucial pc2100 ddr ram
IBM Deskstar 75gxp 45gig.
enlight 7237 case 300watt power supply
sound blaster x-gamer sound card
linksys network card
sony floppy disk 1.44
Pioneer 16x Dvd
velocity 440 video card TNT (Geforce 3 on order)
Windows Me

 

[BrainStorm]

Maybe a BIOS and/or HardDisk Firmware update will do.

It's better to be rich and healthy than poor and sick!

 

[Guest]

Have you tried:

Swapping IDE cables?
Swapping Hard drives?

Also, if the master on IDE 0 doesn't work, you could always boot from secondary on IDE 0. Have you tried?

 

[lhgpoobaa]

has the drive in question got
S.M.A.R.T. capabilities? (or equivalent)
if so get it to do a diagnostic...

also... try a new or different cable.
thats all i ahve to suggest

"Don't be too proud of this technological terror you have created"~Darth Vader, Star wars