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Jun 28th, 2005

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Primary Drive 0 Not Found

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I have a Dell Dimension 4600. I recently reformatted the hard drive, and everything worked fine; however, the next morning the computer would not load Windows and simply said "Primary Drive 0 Not Found," and then, "Strike F1 to retry boot, F2 for setup utility." Because I thought that I had a virus, I reformatted the computer again. Once again, everything worked fine until the next morning. I got the same error again, but this time, when I loaded the windows setup cd, I got this message: "Setup did not find any hard disk drives installed on your computer...Setup cannot continue." Any help would be greatly appreciated.

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jturner388

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Jul 20th, 2005

Re: Primary Drive 0 Not Found

I had this same exact problem with a Dell computer I was working on for a friend.

The only thing I could come up with was that it was a faulty Windows installation, some files did not get loaded. Your cd good? clear of scratches and smudges? If you have to reinstall Windows again, make sure you clean the cd good before you use it.

Kathy

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Jul 20th, 2005

Re: Primary Drive 0 Not Found

It sounds like you may have a failing hard drive, that is not detected by BIOS, and therefore not bootable. As a hard drive fails, it can become less and less responsive - some times it may work some times it may not. The fact that the windows setup disk cannot detect it means that is not likely to be a software problem/scratched disk. If this system is still under warranty, I suggest contacting Dell to have the drive examined/replaced. Can you hear any odd sounds (repetitive clicking/griding) emanating from the hard drive? If you enter BIOS (press F2 right as you turn the computer on), can you see whether the drive is detected in BIOS? One last (simple) thing to check, but that causes a lot of frustration with computers - are the cables plugged in tightly? Sometimes, during normal operation (due to vibration), or when a computer is moved around, cables can come loose - try unplugging the hard drive's cables, then plugging them right back in snuggly.

-Matt
Quick PC Repair (serving the San Diego, CA area)
www.quickpcrepair.com

quickpcrepair

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Jul 21st, 2005

Re: Primary Drive 0 Not Found

I opened up the computer and messed with the plug running into the hard drive. It works fine now. Thanks for your help though.

jturner388

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May 13th, 2007

Re: Primary Drive 0 Not Found

If you enter BIOS (press F2 right as you turn the computer on), can you see whether the drive is detected in BIOS?

I have the same exact problem, except that the drive isn't seen in the BIOS. I tried with a new drive, but same deal. Plugs are all fine. Any suggestions?

XFILESFMDS1013

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May 13th, 2007

Re: Primary Drive 0 Not Found

its a dell problem.

i have a one year old 5150 and ide drives randomly dont get detected like that sometimes. i have to unplug all the cables and reattatch them for them to work

jbennet

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Jan 5th, 2009

Re: Primary Drive 0 Not Found

Matt, I have exactly the same problem as the issue you helped solve. However mine started only after I opened the desktop up, because I wanted to change the 'watch' battery inside. It made a click as i opened it, and I assume this was the cable unplugging from the Hard drive.
However I am completely useless at this - how do I identify which is the hard drive to be able to replug the lead - i.e. what does it look like?
A stupid question I know, but would it be beneath the DVD player?

many thanks

Click to Expand / Collapse Quote originally posted by quickpcrepair ...

It sounds like you may have a failing hard drive, that is not detected by BIOS, and therefore not bootable. As a hard drive fails, it can become less and less responsive - some times it may work some times it may not. The fact that the windows setup disk cannot detect it means that is not likely to be a software problem/scratched disk. If this system is still under warranty, I suggest contacting Dell to have the drive examined/replaced. Can you hear any odd sounds (repetitive clicking/griding) emanating from the hard drive? If you enter BIOS (press F2 right as you turn the computer on), can you see whether the drive is detected in BIOS? One last (simple) thing to check, but that causes a lot of frustration with computers - are the cables plugged in tightly? Sometimes, during normal operation (due to vibration), or when a computer is moved around, cables can come loose - try unplugging the hard drive's cables, then plugging them right back in snuggly.

-Matt
Quick PC Repair (serving the San Diego, CA area)
www.quickpcrepair.com

Mogwhy

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Jan 6th, 2009

Re: Primary Drive 0 Not Found

not likely you pulled the cable off the harddrive just by opening the case ,this is what a harddrive looks like .
http://buildyourowncomputer.zuics.com/img/harddrive.jpg

caperjack

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Jan 6th, 2009

Re: Primary Drive 0 Not Found

Hi Thanks for the note. Amazingly it was the cable that had disconnected from the drive - pushed it back on and it worked.

Thanks again. Phil.

Click to Expand / Collapse Quote originally posted by caperjack ...

not likely you pulled the cable off the harddrive just by opening the case ,this is what a harddrive looks like .
http://buildyourowncomputer.zuics.com/img/harddrive.jpg

Mogwhy

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Re: Primary Drive 0 Not Found

Click to Expand / Collapse Quote originally posted by Mogwhy ...

Hi Thanks for the note. Amazingly it was the cable that had disconnected from the drive - pushed it back on and it worked.

Thanks again. Phil.

your welcome

caperjack

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