Posted: 11/22/2009 2:57:54 PM EDT
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Working on my work laptop, but my home computer has wigged out in a major way. It was working fine today, wasnt really on it other than to check emails and weather. Computer went into screensaver mode and never came back. It wont do anything. When I turn it off and back on, it says it needs boot disk. when I go to Bios, it says Primary IDE master and Primary IDE slave are Not Detected. WTH? What does this mean? How do I get my HDs back online, etc.
could it be motherboard not recognizing BOTH HDs? How do I test the HDs? How do I get BIOS to recognize them? Thanks |
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Sounds like the IDE controller on the mother board is flaking out. Might need to get a PCI ide controller card and put it in and put the drives on that and see if it boots.
Did you try reseating the IDE cables or just switching from primary to secondary IDE slot on your motherboard? Additional Note: You can get a IDE to USB cable and attack it to your laptop to see if it is your hdds or the IDE controller. e.g. http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16812232002 If you have a local computer store you can get it there too. PCI ide controller http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16815124001&cm_re=pci_ide_controller-_-15-124-001-_-Product |
| Well the 2nd drive comes up now, I can get into it, but you can hear a click in the computer and itll lock up the computer completely, this only happens when I go into the 2nd drive. I also tried to cut power to the 2nd drive and the computer would not load at all. How do I take the 2nd drive out of the picture all together. Is this a BIOS thing? |
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Unfortunately my friend, I agree with Splat, it is your IDE controller dying which is most likely embedded into your chipset. Anything you do will be a band-aid as your entire Southbridge is probably gonna fail soon. Maybe time to start shopping for a new laptop, and in the mean time do a backup of your primary hard drive if you can. You should be able to plug your secondary HDD into any other computer and not have any difficulty accessing your files.
ETA: thought it was a laptop, just replace the motherboard if reseating the IDE cable doesn't fix the problem. They are cheap enough these days. |