Primary Hard disk drive 1 not found 2

[gettyup]

Hi,
I just purchased a used Dell 8100 with XP pro installed. My problem is when I start up I get a screen stating : The primary hard disk drive 1 not found, hit F1 to continue or F2 for settings. When I hit F1 windows then loads up and everything seems to work fine. I would like to solve this start up issue so XP launches like it should.

The person I bought it from did the following: - Removed an additional hard drive which was on the same IDE interface cable and set as the slave- Replaced the CDRW with a higher speed - Removed a 250mb Zip drive - Removed a Promise controller card

I have formatted the Hard drive and installed XP Pro. The problem still exists. I have checked the jumper on the existing 40 gb Western Digital drive and it is set to cable select, I checked the bios on my Dell 8100 and the HD 0 is set to auto. The IDE interface cable has the blue end to the processor and the black to the primary drive.
The HD 1 is also set to auto.
Once, I get the first drive to launch without hitting the F1 key, I have a 100gb Western Digital installed but nothing plugged into the back of it yet. I would appreciate any help. I have tried other newsgroups with no success. I tried to call Western Digital today and there would be a 30 min wait.
Sorry for the long descriptor.
Thank you in advance gettyup in Cincinnati

 

[smah]

The next time you boot and get the error message, press F2 to enter the bios, and auto-detect the primary slave (or set it to none).

 

[gettyup]

The slave was set to auto detect. I set it to off and that took care of the boot up with out hitting the F1 key. Thank you.
Now if I plug in the new 100gb digital drive and use the slave position on the IDE cable. What do I set the bios to for the drive. Then do I go to computer management in control panel and select disk management and then right click to format the new drive?? gettyup in Cincinnati

 

[wolluf]

Just set the bios to auto detect the new slave. And yes you should be able to create partition(s) and format in disk management (after writing signature to disk).

One thing - from your previous question/problem I'm wondering about master/slave config (and disk boot order in the bios). You were getting no primary hard disk 1 found when there was one, but there was no slave. When you turned off autodetecting the slave, you stopped getting the message. So, I think its possible the machine may try to boot from your slave 100GB drive (but hope not).

 

[gettyup]

Well, I plugged in the additional drive and the XP booted up correctly. No need to hit F1. I went back into the bios and set slave to auto detect. I then went to disk management. The new drive is shown in the right pane but is not allocated. If I right click there is no option to format. There is an option for partitioning. I plan to use this drive for music and photos. Do I need to partition the drive? How to I finish the installation of this new drive so it shows up in My Computer and is capable for use.Thanks gettyup

 

[wolluf]

Yes you need to partition (you'll get option to format when you do that) - you can create more than one if you want to use parts of the disk for different purposes.

 

[smah]

FYI, hard disk 1 is the slave. Hard disk 0 is the master.

 

[gettyup]

I want to thank everyone who contributed to helping solve my initial problem and walk me through the installation of the second drive.