Primary hard drive 0 boot failure. HELP PLEASE !!!!!!!!

Question

Hi,

when i turn on my computer, i have to following message :

Primary hard drive 0 boot failure. press F1 to retry or F2 to enter setup.

if i try F1, i retry and display the same message. i have to reboot and then it works.

I get this message more and more frequently.

Any advice please. Does that mean that my hard drive is failing. is there any diagnostic tool i can run to try to solve the problem ?

bobyjo · Answer

If you can press F2 and the system reboots and works normal. You have a boot sector that probably is not installed correctly. IMO::I would attempt a repair of  the OS. If you are not familiar with this proceedure come back here and state so. Someone will walk you through it.

AWarner · Answer

I have a similar problem with my Inspiron 5100. Over the past couple of months the system has failed on "cold" reboots (out of Hibernate, Suspend, or being off) with "Operating System not Found" (before BIOS upgrade) and now a disk failure message. I have to power-off/reboot several times to get to the Windows XP screen and then it boots normally. It seems to take more power cycles to boot as time goes on. A warm restart works fine and system works as normal once booted.

Since the problem began I have upgraded the BIOS and OS to SP2 without any issues. I have also run every system diag I can find (including in Setup) and no problems have been found. I am thinking that it is a disk drive issue (original 40Gig Ultra ATA hard drive) but would like to know for sure before replacing. Any tips or ideas are appreciated....

Inspiron 5100 Running Windows XP Pro

BIOS and OS are all the latest

Thanks.

bobyjo · Answer

If nothing else works, try a format and reinstall of the OS. If this does not get the system operating as it should. IMO::Replace the hard drive with one of the new 7200rpm drives, these have a 3-5 year warranty.

manish aggarwal · Answer

I have the same problem, I have an Inspiron 5150. When i tried to boot the system,it says primary hard disk 0 not found. I have run all the diagnostic tests the come with the dell diagnostic CD and they all pass. I dont think there is any test within the CD that tests the hard disk.

I also tried booting the notebook in diagnostic mode by pressing the Fn key and then powering it on. It gives an error message, hard disk not found.

I have tried booting the system with XP Cd and it loads all the drivers and the files but still can not load the OS as it says no bootable device.

I suspect there is a bad spot on the hard drive or is my hard drive dead? Any thoughts???

bobyjo · Answer

IMO::Replace the drive. Get yourself a new version 7200rpm drive. No more use of power, about twice as fast as the original 4200rpm drive. 3yr warranty or longer, depends on the brand you select.

photoworks · Answer

how do you do a repair of the os, will i loose every data on my windows ? The hard disk is apparently not damaged since i ran dft (its a hitachi hardrive) and there was no problem detected.

AWarner · Answer

Update to my previous post regarding the Inspiron 5100....

I called Dell Technical Support with this issue and after running all the diags (on both warm and cold system) and reseating the drive a couple of times they are bringing it back for further testing and repair.

System just doesn't see the drive until it is warmed up either by repeated attempts to reboot or by running diags for a while. It is unclear if it is the connection between the drive and the system or the drive itself. No real discussion that it is a software issue.

I'll update after the repair...

bobyjo · Answer

Enter bios and set the first boot device as CD-Rom, save and exit.  Place the XP install disk in the CDr drive and boot the system. You will probably be asked to press any key to boot from the CDr. Do this and wait until you reach a screen asking if you wish to install XP or repair XP. Press enter to install XP and when you reach the second screen asking if you wish to install XP or repair XP select repair.  You will see that a bunch of files are being deleted and then a new install of XP will began to take place. No data will be lost, nor any critical info. Just follow instructions to complete the repair. Just be sure when you get to the final screen to allow this task to complete completely before changing the screen etc.

photoworks · Answer

Hello bobyjo , what is the process to attempt a repair of my windows ?

photoworks · Answer

Well, i have completed the repair of my windows and now, i cannot connect to the internet. both my network card have a red cross in the network connection, although they are enabled. i have got a notification that the cards are disconnected. However when i am on my linux partition thet work properly so it is not the cards.

when i go into the control panel and try to open wireless properties, it tells me that a dll is missing. Help please.

photoworks · Answer

ok, i fixed the network problem. So the repair of my windows is completed.

However, this morning, when i tried to boot my computer i got again the message :

"Primary hard drive 0 boot failure. press F1 to retry or F2 to enter setup."

I am pretty much sure it is not the hard drive since there was no error detected either by check disk or by dft. Even when i get the message, when i look in the bios, the hard drive is detected.

So if after the repair of windows it is still the same problem, where the issue come from ?

HELP PLEASE !!!!!!!!!!!!

bobyjo · Answer

IMO::Now is the time to replace the old hard drive. I suggest getting a new 7200 rpm hard drive to replace the old one with. I let our's go until it would not boot. As of now you may copy any files you wish to save to a cdr disk, then back to the new drive.

Storage, Drives & Media

Primary hard drive 0 boot failure. HELP PLEASE !!!!!!!!

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