Noises, "Primary Drive 1 Not Found"

[RWH]

I Have A Dell Dimension 4600 And It's About 2 Years Old And We've Never Done Anything To It, Like Installing New Memory Or Anything.

I Was On It One Day Just Checking Up On My Forum When It Started Making These Weird Clicking Noises, And It Wouldnt Stop So I Restarted It And It Came To The Boot Up Screen, Then It Went To A Screen That Had Info On The Computer I Guess, Then It Said "Primary Drive 1 Not Found" and "strike F1 to retry boot, F2 for setup utility". And Now Sometimes It Just Comes Up As "strike F1 to retry boot, F2 for setup utility".

Its Been Like This For Atleast A Week And A Half Now And I Really Need To Get Files Off Of It. Can Someone Help Me? Thanks In Advance... :sad:

P.S. I'm An Ametuer With Computers So I Don't Know Alot

[chrisbliss18]

Sounds like your drive has the "click of death" syndrome, which means that drive is most likely going out. Call Dell tech support and see if they can offer you any warrenty service. If they can't, you will want to buy a new harddrive and replace it.

[RWH]

Do You Have Any Ideas On What Made This Happen?

[chrisbliss18]

All drives wear down over time. Sometimes it just happens faster than normal. There are a slew of potential causes, but it seems to usually happen because of a manufacturing defect of some kind.

[DMR]

I agree with chrisbliss18's diagnosis; the clicking noise is the telltale sign.

If you really need to recover data fom the drive, but cannot get it to come alive, you can try this.