When booting I get the message: SATA Secondary drive 0 not found.

Peter,

 

Yes I did check the cables, unplugging and replugging them and that had no effect.

 

I decided then as a long shot to set the BIOS configuration for that drive to "OFF" and run the computer like that for several boot cycles.  Then I went back into the BIOS and reset the configuration to "AUTO" and by some miracle the BIOS recognized the  drive.  I then ran the drive through the full Dell diagnostic test and it passed all tests. 

 

I'm not sure what happened but if I had to venture a guess I would guess the BIOS setting somehow got corrupted and wouldn't correct when booted.  When booted repeated with the "OFF" setting, it finally cleared the BIOS and reset itself when I changed the BIOS back to "AUTO". 

 

Does this make any sense or am I just grabbing at straws? 

 

Thanks for your help

 

NoBootJack

Possibly the drive has failed.  Have you checked the data and power cables to make sure they are secure?

 

Try plugging the problem drive into another SATA port (you might need to enable the port in the BIOS setup).

 

Peter 

You may be exactly right.  I've had a similar experience that made no sense but solved the problem.

 

Glad you got it working!

 

Peter 

Glad you got it working again. Allow me to hazard a guess that maybe the motherboard battery is weak and not holding BIOS settings very well. If it's more than ~2-3 yrs old, maybe time to replace it?

 

Ron 

ReHe, Peter,

 

I just replaced the battery about 1 month ago.

 

Unfortunately the problem didn't stay solved.  My next step was to switch the ports to which the two SATA drives were connected.  Now I got the message, "SATA Primary Drive 0 not found.  I switched the C:\ drive to the secondary port (I didn't know if it would be recognized as Boot Drive in  the secondary Port).  From this test I can only conclude that the D:\ drive is bad.

 

I'm looking for a replacement.  If I do not connect the two Drives as RAID,  I presume I do not need to get a duplicate of the other (good) drive and I can install an IDE or SATA and connect internally or externally as Firewire or USB.

 

NoBootJack

your comp will only boot up on a new installed hard dirve if it has a os on it otherwise its just a storage divice.this is why you get that massage ,your comp cant see it on boot up

yumeus2003,

 

You are correct that the drive will not boot (the Operating System) up w/o an Operating System on the drive, but that isn't my problem.  My problem is occuring BEFORE Operating System bootup.  It's occuring during BIOS boot, which is to identify all the DEVICES (Video, Hard Drives(all kinds), keyboard, mouse, memory, etc.  This must occur before the Operating System can use the devices. 

 

The BIOS does not recognize my data Hard Drive but, luckily, recognizes my Operating System boot Hard Drive.  Results: From the Operating System's view, the Data Drive doesn't exist.

 

W/O some further sophisticated analysis of the drive I see no other conclusion except the Drive is defective. 

 

Thanks for you input,

 

NoBootJack :smileyhappy:

Make sure you have an available IDE channel before you buy that new hard drive. If you already have 2 IDE optical drives then you'll need a SATA hard drive. Besides SATA is faster than IDE so might be the better way to go, assuming cost isn't a factor for you.

 

Ron 

RoHe,

 

The Drive that went out is a SATA Not IDE.  I'm replacing with another SATA.  But Thanks for the warning.

 

NoBootJack

 

P.S.  You mentioned cost to get a SATA drive.  Well, that's not a problem if you buy from Newegg.com.  I got a Seagate 250 GB SATA for just $59.99!!  It's an OEM so it's probably a surplus from some computer manufacturer but they guranteed me it is new and never used.  It's a bare drive; no hardware, cables, instructions, manual, installation softward, included.  But I can use all my old hardware and all the instructions, manuals and software are downloadable from Seagate or Microsoft. 

 

If you want to clone one of your other drives, download the DiscWizard manual and Software from Seagate.  They will tell you what to download from Microsoft to load an operating system from scratch if that's what you want to do.

 

NoBootJack

I understand the dead duck is SATA, but in one of your posts you said you'd get either another SATA or an IDE drive, so I just wanted to make sure you had an available IDE channel if you went that way.

 

$59.99 for 250 GB is pretty cheap! I paid more than that for my Seagate 80 GB USB drive at begining of this year.

 

Ron 

Ron,

 

Yea, I did mention an IDE drive but when I checked my Dell manual it didn't list that combination.  It gave me the following choices:

 

     1.  Either 2 IDE or 2 SATA, and 2 CD or DVD Drives,  or

     2.  2 SATA in RAID 0 or 1 configuration, 1 IDE,. and 2 CD or DVD Drives

 

Since it didn't specificly say I could do 1 IDE and 1 SATA in the # 1 choice I didn't assume that would be a valid configuration.  But thanks for the heads up.  I could have missed that.  I can use all the help I can get.

 

BTW since as you mentioned the SATA is much faster than the IDE, the choice was a no brainer; especially at the price. 

 

Speaking of the price, that low price kind of made me wonder if there was some gimmick so I contacted Newegg and they confirmed it was new and unused.  They sell retail level stuff and OEM stuff.  But it appears as if they are just the salesmen for the OEM.  It was shipped from a third party.  I'm guessing they just handle inventory surplus for manufacturers.  Even the shipping is free!!   Well, we will see after I install it just how good a deal this is.

 

NoBootJack