Primary 0 drive not found

[jbear0000]

I have a Dell Dimension 2400. It has been working okay for about a year. Today when I got home from church the window's XP blue screen of death was up and I had to reboot. No big deal, it has been happening since shortly after I bought the computer. When it started to boot up I got this error:

Primary 0 drive not found

It gave me the option to press F1 to continue or F2 to run the setup utility

I pressed F1 and it tried to load, but gave me this error:

PXE-E53: No boot filename received
PXE-M0F: Exiting Broadcom PXE ROM

It then returns to the choice of F1 or F2

I looked though the setup section and under drive configuration it lists my Primary master drive as "unknown device"

In the boot sequence section as number 2 it says "Hard disk drive (not installed)

I read in another message thread that it could be the cmos battery. Could my problem be that simple or is my hard drive dead? If it is my hard drive and I replace it is there any way to mirror the old one onto the new one? If I took the computer to a repair shop, would they be able to get back my lost information on that hard drive?

[Thong_Ispector]

I would suggest you get a Mepis or Knoppis LiveCD. THey are a linux operating system that will give you tools without trying to install anything onto the hard drive.

If you have an SATA you need to get knoppix (Knoppix also will do IDE) as it will autodetect those drives and Mepis does not.. yet

Boot to the livecd and look to see if your drive is visable, if the data is there or if it is DOA.

Why, Why, Why do people only think about a backup AFTER they have a problem...
(In my best imitation of Ross from the series Friends)

[jbear0000]

I would suggest you get a Mepis or Knoppis LiveCD. THey are a linux operating system that will give you tools without trying to install anything onto the hard drive.

Where can I get that?

If you have an SATA you need to get knoppix (Knoppix also will do IDE) as it will autodetect those drives and Mepis does not.. yet

What is SATA and IDE? How do I know the difference?

Boot to the livecd and look to see if your drive is visable, if the data is there or if it is DOA.

If my hard drive is dead, can a professional repair person maybe get some of it back?

Why, Why, Why do people only think about a backup AFTER they have a problem...
(In my best imitation of Ross from the series Friends)

It isn't really the information stored on the computer that is the biggest loss, but it is windows xp. Dell does not send out a windows xp installation disk with the computer. There is something that you have to do over the internet to access anything you may need from the installation disk. So if I do start over with a blank hard drive I will have to go buy windows xp.

[jbear0000]

Where can I get that?

Nevermind, I found it and am downloading it right now.

[jbear0000]

It may not be the hard drive. I am now using the Dell and it is running okay. I left it off for a few hours and it booted up fine. My guess is that it is the cmos battery, but I think I am going to buy a second hard drive and set it up to mirror the first just in case. Anyone have any other ideas what may be wrong?

[BTVS]

I swapped out the CMOS and tada... the hard drive was recognized once again. Thank you for the post!

[trinitybrown]

Check your wiring configuration and also replace your cmos battery, i hope it will work