Primary Master Fails - Help Needed 2

[sm9]

I have a problem with my PC that I hope someone can help me with. I booted up my PC at 8am one morning before going to work, and I left it connected to Kazaa downloading files all day (as I often do). When I came home from work at 6pm, there was a message displayed on my monitor about some sort of error (I've forgotten exactly what it said), and it was loading in safe mode - this was a DOS screen, and nothing else was happening.

I then reset my PC, and as it started loading. I got a message on screen saying "Primary Master Fails." I could click OK to continue, then it will tell me to insert a System Disk as there is a Boot error, or I can hit DEL to enter Setup.

Therefore, basically, it appears that my Hard Drive is broke. I checked all the connections, and everything is fine, so I assume this is hardware fault. (?)

I have now bought a brand new hard drive (a Maxtor 30GB), and have just installed Windows XP and all my software from scratch. So my PC is working now.

...But my problem is this, my old Hard Drive had about 10Gb of files that I would like to recover, but as it's broke, what can I do? I have heard that some places can fix broken hard drives and recover the files? I don't
really care about the hard drive itself, only the 10Gb of data that's on it!

My last backup was about 6 months ago so I am missing a lot of data - digital family photos (mainly), downloaded utilities, personal documents, the lot! I definitely won't be making this mistake again (of not backing up for so long), but what's done is done, and now I want to try and see if there is anything I can do to rescue these files.

I had put a post on a newsgroup about this a few weeks ago, and the two suggestions I was given to fix the Hard Drive were to to hit it (but not too hard), or to put it in the freezer for 10 hours, then try if it works. I have not tried any of these ideas yet, but they may be my last resort before I get expensive professional help.

I have tried connecting the broken drive as a Primary Slave drive, but I still get a message on startup, this time saying "Primary Slave Fails." But Windows will then boot up from my new Primary Master.

On the BIOS / DOS screen that appears on my computer on startup, the broken Primary Slave drive is listed amongst the other drives and components, so it is being detected. It's just not working for some reason.

Also, when Windows XP loads for the first time with the broken hard drive connected as a Slave drive (strangely, Windows takes a few minutes longer to boot up when the broken primary slave drive is connected), I get a window appear saying "New hardware detected." In Device Manager, the broken drive is listed, and it says "This device is working properly." I find this very unusual, and wonder whether I could fix it or try something to make my hard drive work again? It's all very confusing for me though.

The specification of my PC is as follows:
Windows XP Professional, Athlon 1Ghz processor, 256Mb SDRAM, 32MB nVidia Graphic Card, Sound Blaster 32 Sound Card, Quantum Fireball Hard Drive - 30GB IDE (broken hard drive).

I hope someone can help or advise me, it will be much appreciated.

Thanks,

Stephen

 

[sm9]

Thanks for that description firewolfrl. It doesn't mean a lot to me, but it's nice to have it in writing anyway (at least I can try and remember some of that if anyone asks me what's wrong with my hard drive!).

I'll post again when there are any developemts, at least the thread can then be closed and stop annoying the Tek Tips users!

Thanks,

Stephen

 

[MrTheEdgeSTB]

Hello all!

Hate to comiserate, but I'm one more voice in the chorus. I, too, have an amazing (sob, sniff) Maxtor 30 GB HDD (53073H6 - warranty expires 11/03) which has performed like a champ for me since October of 2000. To the point then, I just gutted and rebuilt my system this January with an ASUS P4PE/L socket 478, P4 2.0GHz, 512MB PC2700/DDR333 RAM, ATI Radeon 9000 Pro/128MB, and Windows XP Home with my trusty Maxtor drive. Last night, I experienced some system sluggishness. At one point, the OS failed and shut down (partially) on its own, so I rebooted, dumped some Temp files, and ran Defrag. Defrag was also slow, and hung at around 9% while scanning registry files (not good!). I then did a reboot (barely, as it seemed as though it would freeze up), and it never recovered. Same message: Primary master drive fails!!! BIOS recognizes the drive for what it is (on Auto), but it fails everytime after POST.

To sweeten the sauce a bit: I don't use Kazaa. We recently got DSL through Qwest/MSN. We have a LinkSys 4 port DSL router (firewall!), and we also use Norton Internet Security (Antivirus and firewall!). Thus far, my wife's laptop has had no troubles. I have loaded onto my PC a number of game demos over the last three weeks (mostly from the 'Tucows' site), and within the last three days, tried to load a couple of 'Matrix' screen savers. The issues seemed to arise after trying to run one of them (from a legit site, so...).

But wait, there's more! I have a plethora of known-good drives that I use for testing (mostly 2-6GB), and after trying what most of y'all have tried (swapping cables, drive position/sequence, etc) I tried a couple of these known-good drives, and they ALSO report: Primary master drive fails!!! (One of these drives is a Western Digital).

So, then -- I am about to try PowerMax (downloaded last night on wife's laptop), but given the above posts, I am less than optimistic. My theory is this then: is it possible this could be a virus? (Given my firewall/antivirus protection I will be very disappointed if it is.) Is so, is it possible it has corrupted the motherboard CMOS, so that the BIOS utility needs to be reflashed or updated? Any thoughts?

Definitely noticing a trend here. Probability of multiple simultaneous drive failures due to age is getting thin. I'll be curious to see where this ends up. In the meantime, my beautiful PC is on the floor in pieces, and I'm not happy!

Regards,

Stefan

 

[firewolfrl]

to MrTheEdgeSTB
does it do the same thing on the secondary ide controller?

"Motherboard controllers do fail"

try on add-on controller and see if that works.

I have about 20 motheboards of the same brand and about 4 of them I can't use the primary controller and 2 of them I can't use the secondary controller.
all of them have no problems with add-on ATA 100 controller cards.

Static is the number one killer of controllers.

I have so many MB's its not a big deal to swap and junk the bad one. You should look into sending the MB out as a RMA or cut your loss and get a new MB

 

[stsjr]

have you heard about the R-studio software?..damn good recovery software...even i repartition and reformated my hard disk for a several time i was able to recover my files even five years after...if you're interested..email me, so I can email it to you.. I hope this could recover your file with this software. I was hopeless but revived with this one...

haymheljosh@yahoo.com

 

[spf33]

well, the magic code UK0E02 brought me here thru google.
i just bought and tried to install a brand new maxtor 80gb 7200rpm 8mb cache. the bios never recoginized the drive at any point. maxblast doesnt see the drive and the powermax diag gave me the error code UK0E02. and i bought this fricken drive to replace another maxtor 80gb 5400rpm which i had to rma this afternoon that died with a different error code.
maybe i'll stick to western digital...

 

[alili]

dear SM9
how about your broken hard drive ?

 

[Slack70]

Having been lead here by a search for info on doing a low level init on the 3.3g IBM HD in my Aptiva 200 MHz tower - I've noticed that about 9 out of 10 of you that are having these drive failures are running some version of WinBlows.... Do you'll need to get a 4X4 across your punkin' haid before you realize that the OS is the problem ???? Sheeesh!!! Get a Clue!

Billys Revenge (aka Windows*) is such an unstable OS that I wouldn't be surprised to find that IT caused the heads to go careening across the platters in an energized (write) mode.... I've seen the OS overwrite DLL and other system files on a whim...

And therein lies the main reason I want to do a 'low level' destructive r/w on my HD to make SURE I get rid of every hint of that crappy OS...


Linux Rules! And even OS/2 is more of an OS that winDohs... Dig It !

Slack70

 

[sm9]

Hi alili,

My hard drive is still at Vogon, the data recovery firm. I got a phone call from them last week, and the situation is basically this: They are pretty sure that the damage is something called 'swipe damage,' and normally, they would say that no recovery is possible. But they want to keep my hard drive for their Research Department to analyse and do further tests on, therefore all hope is not lost just yet. If they do manage to recover any files, then they would charge me a reduced fee because they've had the drive with them for so long.

I will post back here as soon as I get the report from them so you can see exactly what they've said. It should be with me any time now.

Thanks,

Ste

 

[sm9]

Hi there,

I got the technical report from Vogon today about my hard drive, so I have pasted it below as promised. Do let me know if anyone has any comments.

Thanks,

Ste


Re: Data Recovery from Quantum AS30A011

Dear Stephen

I write to confirm our findings with regard to your failed Quantum AS30A011 hard drive. I regret that it has not proven practicable to recover any data from your drive though we are continuing with hardware development which may result in successful recovery, though we cannot yet estimate the likely time frame.

The results of diagnostic tests on individual components of your drive have revealed that although the stored data is inaccessible there is no apparent hardware component at fault. We have, using proprietary media analysis techniques, been able to determine that there is a loss of the vital drive operating code that is normally held in the manufacturer’s reserved area of the disk media. This code is updated by the drive throughout its working life and contains information unique to the disk media itself.

Without vital parts of the operating code, such as the sector address map, individual sectors of data cannot be rearranged back into their correct logical order, making recovery of the data stored on your drive impracticable. Replacement of the code from another identical drive would result in damage to your data.

This failure mode is often known as ‘swipe / erasure damage’. The causes can be wide-ranging from a bug in the drive’s firmware, a temporary or permanent failure of one or more electronic components to transient voltages within the drive’s power supply. The result is that the drive overwrites or corrupts the operating code and from that point on, is unable to function normally.

Our Research and Development team is dedicated to developing new hardware and software techniques to effect recovery of data from drives with failure modes such as yours. To date we have been successful in recovering a large proportion of data from many different drives with ‘swipe / erasure damage’. I must caution, however, that the success of such techniques very much depends upon the extent and nature of the corruption that has occurred. If there is corruption and it spreads into the data area then, even if we are able to access the data, a recovery of usable files might not be achievable.

We will be happy to retain your hard drive and continue working on it as part of our ongoing Research and Development programme. There would be no charge for the development work but neither is there any guarantee that a successful recovery will be achieved or how much time will be required for the on-going work.

I propose continuing with the work and then contacting you again either four weeks from the date of this letter, or else as soon as there is any change to the situation with your drive. If you would like us continue on this basis please contact either our Customer Services department or me. If you have any further questions we would be happy to discuss these with you.


Yours Sincerely


Data Recovery Hardware Engineer

 

[24091985]

Hmm... guess what I have the almost same problem. My hard disk is Maxtor 20 gb and after error in bios my hard drive is seeing like "maxtor ares c40k" with 40 gb and heads/clouster/itc. are diferent. I think that I wouldn't recover my data, but can I repair hd to normal work by low format or something?

excuse my english


Iskander

 

[sjk1]

Hi!

I had exactly the same problem. My hd is a seagate, 40GB, and i was using win2k - with NTFS.

On May 25th, i tried to turn on my computer, and then...the message: "PRIMARY MASTER FAILS"

The most wierd thing is that the HD appears/is detected by BIOS, so, i thought: "its a hardware problem".

But it could be a sofware problem (microsoft....) so i tried using the win2k installation cd. but it didnt worked, because the windows installer said that cant find any hd in my computer.

I have a roommate, that have a computer using win2k with ntfs too, so i tried to connect my hd as secondary slave in his computer, but (really strange too) the hd was not recognized by windows -> it wasnt detected -> there was no letter assigned to the device, i couldnt even access it (hardware problem???)

Then, i found this forum. I got really upset, because my problem seemed to be exactly the same as stephen, and everything that he tried to do didnt worked...

So, i came to my job, and talked to some friends (all engineers too -> i am a computer (software) engineer), and we spent some time testing the hd.

what we suggest (what i did):
1. connect the hd in a linux computer;
2. see what happens during linux startup -> if it will recognize the device or not (in my case, linux recognized it). if not, well...hardware problem...

3. so, linux recognized it. the device can be found at /dev/hdb (or any other, it depends -> this information shows at startup).

4. execute:
dd if=/dev/hdb of=/dev/null

this will try to copy an image of your hd (dd = disk dump) to the null linux device. in fact, it will not copy anything...just scans the hd -> if there's a hardware problem, the dd command will fail.

just wait (takes about 1 hour or more...40gb took 1:15 hour...)

5. in my case, it worked ok. then, i decided to mount the device in linux (linux has support to read ntfs partitions).

the magical command:
mount /dev/hdb /mnt/mydrive

and...it WORKED!!! all my data was there, except some windows files (system files under root (c:\) directory).

this might not work to everyone, but its a test one should do for sure.

samuel.

 

[Kerlouarn]

Hello guys,

I come to you because I have a problem that strongly looks like yours. Let me enumerate all the symptoms :

I was working on my computer a few days ago when it suddenly crashed (not an 0E error or something, it just shut down and reboot). I have Windows 2000 and this symptom may happen sometimes but this is not usual. When trying to boot back, it printed the same message : "primary master disk fails". I first thaught the disk was too hot (the day had been particularly warn) so I decided to study the problem the day after... got the same message.

Ok, I'm quite used to HDD crashes (however, it has always been my fault before but this time, it seems it's not ). What I usually recommand to do when having disk crashes is to - first of all - try to recover all the datas with Linux (what explained sjk1). Here we go, I boot up linux, it detects the drive, the right model name, the right CHS parameters etc, I try fdisk to see the partitions state, seems to be good. OK, I try to mount the partitions, everything runs OK... I backup my datas, ouf! I have everything back on a safe Hdd.

Since I have backed up all my datas, I am able to test everything I want on the drive (that is a Maxtor 20G drive). I download all the Maxtor utilities (powermax and maxblast) from maxtor's website and try to run them all on my hard drive. It doesn't report any error nor disfunction. I've tried to low-level format (zero-fill) the drive that is done correctly to. Everything works fine and no error occurs. But I still have a "primary drive fails" when booting.

If I enumerate the symptoms regarding the BIOS, I could say that the drive is correctly recognized with autodetection, that the error message is printed just before the boot sequence is launched, proposing me to press F1 to continue or DEL to enter BIOS. If I press F1, the drive is removed from the autodetected drives (this means that it would be the same if I put "None" in the BIOS better than "Autodetect&quot.

Actually, I could use the drive as a "storage" drive since it would be nicely recognized and usable by both Windows and Linux but I still won't be able to boot from it (ie use it as a "system" disk). I would like to remove this error message at the begining. Some of you have told about a virus or a firmware problem, do you have more informations on that part ? I do not really want to send my hard drive back to Maxtor (that would take me a month or more before having something fuctionnal back to home)... And I'm nearly sure that the drive is not defective at all because of the fact that I can read/write on it without any problem.

To finish with my message, I would say for everyone reading this thread that you really have to think to Linux when needing to get some datas back from a hard drive. (at least, I have already had a problem with some misfunctionning partition tables, I re-wrote them from scratch with the linux/fdisk and recovered all my datas ;o).

Thanks for your future help - if possible -

Yann

 

[Kerlouarn]

Nobody to reply to my post ?

 

[jni]

i'm going to make this as easy as possible...
put your set your old hd as primary on your cpu
make sure jumper settings are correct....

boot from a 98 boot disk...at the a:> command prompt
type c:\
this changes the a:>promt to c:> prompt
at the c:\ prompt type windows\options\cabs\setup
it will look as followed:

c:>windows\options\cabs\setup hit enter

windows will proceed to reload your system and registry
in xp you have the c drive as well as the d drive...xp makes a copy of your restore information in the d drive...
you can salvage your info if the drive is not too overly corrupt it can be saved..

good luck

 

[Kerlouarn]

Hi jni,

I think some of my explanations have been forgotten.... May be my post was too long and there were too many explanations...

Anyway, I explained that I recovered all my datas correctly and that I low-level formated (zero-filled) the disk in order to repair it. This means I do not have any OS, data nor partitions anymore.

Also, the messages keeps printing *before* the boot ! Let's have a step by step look at the boot up sequence. First of all, the computer optionnaly prints some informations about the graphic card. Then it counts its memory. After that starts the IDE auto detection procedure. Here, my disk is correctly found (good name, correct CHS parameters and so on). After that *should* the screen change to a summary of the system features (CPU, memory, LPT/COM ports, IRQs and so on) before going on the software boot, ie, finding the MBR and launch your favorite boot loader. Here I say should because before the screen changes, just under the IDE autodetection lines, appears a line announcing that "primary master drive fails". Two special keys are available :
F1 will remove the disk of my bios settings (ie the summary informations on the next screen will report having no disk on primary master) so it won't be able to boot on my disk.
ESC will drive me in the BIOS configuration menu in order to try to solve the problem.

Thus, the problem is no way linked to software nor operating system... It might be a hardware problem or a very low-level software problem (BIOS or firmware)...

Am I clear in my explanations ? I am not native english speaker so pardon me if my explanations are all messed up. I try to do my best, and I hope you now understand why reinstalling the windows registry would not change a lot.

Anyway, I tahnk you for your try...

kerlouarn

 

[edfair]

The message is a boot sector failure, which is normal after a zero fill, since you have put zeros or some other data on the boot sector.
Boot from a floppy and use fdisk and create a partition, then boot again with a floppy and format c: with the /s switch. If you can do that without errors the drive is usable and should boot to the c:> prompt.




Ed Fair
Any advice I give is my best judgement based on my interpretation of the facts you supply. Help increase my knowledge by providing some feedback, good or bad, on any advice I have given.

 

[Kerlouarn]

Hehe edfair... seems like you didn't read the whole post (that becomes quite long for sure ;o). This is not a boot problem at all, the message comes before the boot sequence. The message would be the same if I moved the disk to secondary slave if you want... don't know how to say/write it another way, -this- *is* -not- *a* -boot- *sector* -problem- ! it could be hardware or firmware, that's all I see. No software should be launched at the time the message is printed.

anyway, I have received the firmware from Maxtor this week. I will try to flash the disk soon and I will give you the results back...

kerlouarn

 

[edfair]

I agree about it not being a boot failure, there is nothing to boot.
But the POST sequence goes out to the hard drive twice, once to see if there is a drive there like CMOS tells it, then later to see if there is a bootable partition.
I think that the first shot is a partition peek, it has been too long ago for me to remember the exact sequence from debugging BIOS, so I'm not sure. But I do know that I've cured the problem with a low level(aka zero fill) that cleaned out the partition table and allowed fdisk to write a vailid partition table.
And yes, it can be other hardware troubles, from HD problem, to controller problem, to bad IDE cable, and on 2 occasions, IDE cables that were the wrong length. This last was evidently a problem with reflected signals, I didn't bother to scope what was happening. Besides which, it has been so long since I've used a scope I probably couldn't set it up correctly anyway.

Ed Fair
Any advice I give is my best judgement based on my interpretation of the facts you supply. Help increase my knowledge by providing some feedback, good or bad, on any advice I have given.

 

[WyldEyes]

I too am having this problem, I have a 40GB Western Digital (WD400AB). It is not detected by the BIOS or any Utilities posted here. It was acting really sluggish the other day, so I rebooted it and when it was booting up I got the message Primary Master Drive Fail. I haven't been able to get it going since. I would like to get my Data off before sending it in to get replaced. If anyone has any other ides to try.

 

[WyldEyes]

I too am having this problem, I have a 40GB Western Digital (WD400AB). It is not detected by the BIOS or any Utilities posted here. It was acting really sluggish the other day, so I rebooted it and when it was booting up I got the message Primary Master Drive Fail. I haven't been able to get it going since. I would like to get my Data off before sending it in to get replaced. If anyone has any other ides to try. I am using Windows 2000