when i boot my computer up, it says:"prymary hard disk fail" what does this mean, and how can i fix it?

Question

on the first screen(the first screen that apears when you turn on on your [or in this case "my"]computer),the system can detect both the primary and secondary hard disk drives...but it keeps saying that the primary hard disk failed!... what should i do?

Answer 1

Replace the primary hard drive - it's dead.

Answer 2

My suggestions, in order of what you should do first.

1) Try the turning the system on again, sometimes weird **** like this just happens, if it does again, go to #2
2)At the start up screen when it says "press to enter set up" press that key, and see if your primary or secondary hard drives are listed
3)Open the computer, and reconnect the cables to the motherboard and hard drive
4)Reformat the hard drive (Probably wont be possible, but worth a try if nothing else works)
5)If none of the above works, buy a new hard drive and install it

Answer 3

The primary is probably the hard drive the system is trying to boot from. The drive is corrupted, damaged, or the MBR (master boot record) is missing, it could very well be producing the failure errors you are seeing.

Most likely it's a bad hard drive although formatting it might do the trick. However, before you do anything, every hard drive maker has a set of diagnostic tools. Usually that creates a diskette that'll run a test on your hard drive to see why it's not functioning correctly and if it's repairable. You can find these tools on the manufacturer's website.

Good Luck.

Answer 4

Try running in safe mode (if it's a Windows machine). If you can't get into safe mode, try to boot from a bootable CD or floppy to get to the command prompt, then see if you can access the hard drive by typing c: at the command prompt. Also try running scandisk/chkdisk on that drive if you can.

Your hard drive may be bad. Hope you have your data backed up somewhere.

Answer 5

If running xp,first try rebooting in SAFE MODE (hold f5 key after restarting,if this fails,could be harddrive crash

Answer 6

open the cpu and check the cables from the motherboard to the HDD, maybe is unplugged, or your HDD is damaged and need new one