Primary Hard Disk Drive not found

Question

Folks, I have a Dell Inspiron 8100 with Windows 2000 OS.  I am getting the following message when I turn on the computer:   Primary hard disk drive not found Fixed optical drive not found   No bootable devices   I had a similar situation 3 years ago and at that time Dell Tech Support guided me through a OS reinstallation while ensuring that my hard disk data remained intact.  My warranty is over now and I am wondering if you guys can point me to any step-by-step reinstall  with hard disk data saved.  I can also try to go to a computer repair shop and see if they can connect my hard drive to another computer and try to retrieve the data.  I looked at the Dell support site and they are asking my to reseat the hard drive.  It is easily done for a desktop but a notebook reseat is challenging, at best.  Any suggestions are welcome.

ejn63 · Answer

Most likely, the hard drive has failed. Reseat the drive, and if it's still not found, replace it. The system uses an EIDE 2.5', 9.5 mm notebook drive.

leduke30 · Answer

In addition to ejn63's info,  the reason the Fixed Optical Drive is not found, on the 8100 that drive is slaved to the harddrive and if the harddrive goes out, the CD drive will not be detected as present either. Replace the Harddrive as ejn63suggested and the fixed optical drive will be back Message Edited by leduke30 on 09-22-2006 12:39 AM

Shams8100 · Answer

Thanks for your tips.  I bought a Nextstar External Drive enclosure and connecetd by HD to a working computer.  At first it ame up with all my files but when I tried to save them in the working computer it came back saying that write failed.   I tried again and this time nothing was coming up under the external drive.  I can hear the HD running and making some 'noise' but that's all.  Any other way of trying to save my files before replacing the HD.  Thanks.

rickmktg · Answer

Shams8100 wrote:

Thanks for your tips. I bought a Nextstar External Drive enclosure and connecetd by HD to a working computer. At first it ame up with all my files but when I tried to save them in the working computer it came back saying that write failed.

I tried again and this time nothing was coming up under the external drive. I can hear the HD running and making some "noise" but that's all. Any other way of trying to save my files before replacing the HD. Thanks.

Try putting the drive in a ziplock bag and then in the freezer for two hours. Plug it in, gain access, and IMMEDIATELY copy the most important files over. Don't play around, copy fast.

Storage, Drives & Media

Primary Hard Disk Drive not found

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