Primary hard disk drive 0 not found

Any help is appreciated.

I have read the similar threads, but it seems I have a little different problem.

What is involved:



Dell Inspiron 9200 I estimate it is thirty months old

Windows XP Pro BIOS Revision A00

Hard drive Hitachi 60GB
Model HTS548060M9AT00
5400 RPM October 2004 1.0 Amps



One evening, I begin to move about twenty to thirty gigabytes, I estimate, of the data on the hard drive to an external hard drive. Something I've done several times before.

I come back a couple of hours later, and the move is completed.

I begin to download a file, and leave again.

I come back to a blue screen, advising of some error or other. I pay no attention, as I have this screen occasionally, and the quickest (perhaps the only) solution is to re-boot and start over.

This time, though, when I re-boot, I hear a clicking, a sound I have never heard before. It seems to be coming from the area of the battery. The clicking is not metronomic, but erratic, in its rhythm. Not like what I have experienced to be a "can't find home" problem.

Sure enough, instead of booting up, the computer displays three messages, occurring at one time or another. The first two:


ntldr is missing
loading pbr for descriptor 2


I mess around for a day or two, trying to replace the loader, deceiving myself into believing that maybe things aren't that bad, that maybe just a sector or two of the disk has gone bad, and that the clicking noise is just in my head.

Shortly, however, a new message appears:


primary hard disk drive 0 not found


I needed to get back up and running as quickly as possible, and I could worry about data loss later. So I bought a new hard drive:


Hard drive Hitachi 160GB
Model HTS541616J9AT00
5400 RPM July 2008 600 Milliamps


Everything else is the same as the old hard drive - cylinders, heads, voltage, access time - everything I can compare.

I remove the original drive from the computer, remove it from the adapter, put the new drive into the adapter, and put the assembly back into the computer.

And get the following message:


primary hard disk drive 0 not found


I go into the BIOS, and I learn the following:


Primary Hard Drive: None


Upon inspection, the connectors on the hard drives differ a little. On the original drive, there are two rows of pins, separated by a very thin piece of plastic. That is to say, there is a row of pins on one side of the piece of plastic, and another row on the other side.

On the new, larger drive, the pins are separated not by plastic, but by air. And the separation of the pins on the new drive (by air) appears to be larger than the separation of the pins on the original drive (by plastic).

The number of pins, and their spacing within the rows, is the same on both drives.

When I look into the slot where the hard drive plugs into the computer, I see that the pin receptacles appear to align more closely with the new drive than the original drive (it appears that the original drive would not have fit into the computer, if anything).


So why does the computer not recognize the new drive:

1. Bad new drive?

2. New drive pins don't fit into computer?

3. New drive mismatched in some other way?

4. Bad BIOS battery (Lord knows how to get to that)?

5. Some damage done when removing original drive or inserting new one?

6. Something else?



Or better yet, what to do to find out?

Or best of all, what course will most likely lead to getting this Dell back up and running as quickly as possible? (For what it is worth, I am in the middle of nowhere, so running across town to pick up a part - much less a new hard drive - is not in the picture, although a BIOS battery is very possible, if it is just a watch or hearing aid battery.)

Again, all aid is appreciated. Greatly.

 

Since this is an IDE drive you might try a new cable. If that doesn't help you might try connecting the drive to your secondary ide port if you mother board has one.

 

Thanks for your suggestion, lcsmith39.

If I knew how to post a formal "thank you," I certainly would. There is too much about this forum for me to learn, I think.

The solution to my problem - for anyone coming behind and reading this thread and looking for a solution to a similar problem - is as follows.

There is a pin adapter, a blade, that fits onto the pins of a hard drive like this. The whole procedure - with pictures showing what to do! - is at

http://www.bay-wolf.com/hdd8000.htm

Good luck to all who might benefit from this information, and thanks, again, lcsmith39.

 

As I read the first post, I knew that you had overlooked using the small plastic thingy that slides on to the hard drive pins. Many people think it's built in to the hard drive, but, as you discovered, it is easy to remove from one drive and to slide it on to the new drive. Glad to hear you got it figured out and that you're up and running. When you're ready to start some data recovery attempts, let us know and we'll do our best!

[dlb]