Primary master hard disk error

[Wsims]

I've had a recent bad run-in with a computer repairmen. When I said I needed a latch on my heat sink to be re-soldered back onto the motherboard, he took that as replacing the motherboard entire for some reason. So I get the entire computer back, no drivers, my ATI TV Wonder Pro (Remote Control Edition) will not install no matter what I do, even with the drivers for that. USB ports on the front won't work, floppy drive is messed up (not even sure how that's possible), and only one of my DVD drives are functioning correctly. This motivated me to get a new computer altogether.

Unfortunately, having such high standards, I could not allow myself to buy a petty pre-built system--custom-built is the only way for me. ASUS Maximus Extreme motherboard, Core 2 quad 3.0 GHz processor, 4 gb of DDR3 ram (pc15000), 512 mb GDDR4 Crossfire Video card, 500 gb Seagate Barracuda hard drive, and a 950-watt power supply, not modular . After taking a couple hours of getting everything hooked up into the full-sized case, putting the motherboard together, carefully installing the CPU, ram, video card, sound card, and all the plugs from the power supply, I'm ready to go. Even have the updated version of the BIOS on my flash drive, which I update from the get-go.

System reboots, I'm checking the BIOS (for temperatures and overclocking capabilities) and notice something about my SATA hard drive... it's being recognized as 0 mb. Having a Windows Vista Ultimate 64-bit edition OS at hand (legally downloaded, maybe >_>), this is pretty unsettling. I can't install an OS, period. I've updated the drivers. I have multiple SATA and power cables which I tested out. I keep getting the same error message: Primary master hard disk error. It's recognizing the hard drive, but only listing as 0 mb instead of 500 gb.

Google has failed me, so I'm asking you all for some assistance. Much appreciated.

TL;DR: Hard drive displays as 0 mb even when recognized, BIOS is updated, cables are fine, and I can't install my OS. Help, please?

 

[max8699]

Wsims,
I found this on the seagate website, might help.

http://seagate.custhelp.com

There are five main reasons why a system BIOS will not detect the presence of an internal hard drive.They are:

1.Faulty data cable
2.No power to drive (drive is not spinning up)
3.Incorrect jumper settings on the drive
4.Capacity of the hard drive is too large for the BIOS to support
5.Faulty hard drive
After verifying that your ATA or SATA port is set to Auto-Detect or is enabled, if you find that your disk drive is not being detected (auto-detected) by the system BIOS, try the following steps to try and isolate/troubleshoot the problem.

Faulty Data Cable

The BIOS will not detect a hard disk if the data cable is damaged or the connection is incorrect. The easiest way to test a cable is to replace it with another cable. If the problem persists, then the cable was not the cause of the problem. For ATA drives, Seagate recommends using UDMA cabling with a maximum length of 18 inches. UDMA cables have color coded connections which require proper orientation when connecting. The blue connector always connects to the motherboard. The gray middle connector is used for slave devices on the cable. The Black connector is used for Master device connection.

Picture of an Ultra ATA data cable.

For SATA cables, Seagate recommends using cables longer than 12 inches, but shorter than 39.37 inches (1 meter). For further information, please see Answer ID: 1334

Always inspect the motherboard, and hard disk connections for bent or misaligned pins. Folding, crimping, pinching, or creasing data cables can cause the wires to break inside the insulation, leaving the exterior of the cable looking normal. When in doubt of data cable condition replace it.

No Power to drive (drive is not spinning up)
If the drive is not receiving power or receiving an incorrect level of power (12v) it will not spin up. To check to see if this is the cause of the BIOS not detecting the hard drive, follow these steps:

With the system turned off, open the computer case and remove the data cable from the hard drive. This will stop any “power saving” commands from being sent.
Turn on the system. Check to see if the hard drive is spinning. If you touch the side of the drive you should feel a slight vibration. If you do not hear or feel the hard drive spinning you will need to find out if the drive is getting power.
In some cases it is necessary to remove the drive from the case and physically hold it in your hands. Due to system fans vibrating and making too much noise, it's very difficult to observe the drive spinning while mounted.
If removing the drive, it's necessary to be sure to use a grounding strap. Do not hot plug power to the drive. Hold it in your hand, connect the power cable, and then power the system on.


If the drive is not spinning please visit the Warranty Services Page.

Incorrect jumper settings on the drive

It is recommended that all Seagate ATA hard disks supporting the Cable Select jumper option be configured as Cable Select. If your computer system was built prior to October 1998 and does not support UDMA 66 or greater you will be required to use the Master/Slave jumper settings.

When using Cable Select jumper settings on your ATA drive, all devices connected to the UDMA cable must also use the Cable Select setting. The cable decides master/slave device detection when the cable select jumper settings are used. The black cable connector always detects the device as master. The gray connector always detects the device as a slave. Please consult Answer ID: 3050 for further instructions.

If you have a 3.0 Gbit/sec SATA drive that is not being detected by your 1.5 Gbit/sec SATA controller, or it causes your system to lock up when connected to a 1.5 Gbit/sec SATA controller, you may need to jumper your 3.0 Gbit/sec SATA drive to the slower speed of 1.5 Gbit/sec for the system to recognize it properly. For further information on changing the jumper setting to slow down your SATA drive’s transfer rate, please see Answer ID: 3116.

Capacity of the hard drive is too large for the BIOS to support (ATA ONLY)
: This procedure refers only to ATA drives, as SATA controllers do not have any issues seeing large capacity SATA drives.

Computer systems built prior to October of 1998 typically hang or freeze while auto detecting large hard disks during system startup. Common BIOS capacity barriers include 528 MB, 2.1 GB, 8.4 GB, and 32 GB. There are multiple solutions to work around BIOS capacity barriers. Always disconnect the ATA and power cables first before entering the BIOS, to keep the system from hanging.

: The following steps can allow older systems to access larger capacity internal drives, however they will be at a reduced capacity. To allow your system’s hardware to recognize the full capacity of the hard drive, it is recommended that you either upgrade your system’s BIOS, or purchase a PCI ATA controller card.

To troubleshoot these problems follow these steps:
Restart and enter the system BIOS to set the drive parameters manually. (Entering the system BIOS is usually accomplished by pressing F1, F2, or DEL right after powering the system on. Look for an on-screen message stating which key to press.)
Set the BIOS parameters for the drive from Auto-Detect to None, or Off.
Save settings, exit setup, and power the system off.
Save BIOS settings and exit.
Reconnect the power and ATA cables, power the system on and boot to the SeaTools for DOS CD or Floppy.
When the system boots to the SeaTools program, press C to set the drive capacity.
If you don’t know the maximum capacity drive your system’s BIOS can handle, press S to set the maximum to 32GB, which is a common limit on older systems. If you do know the maximum, you can press M to set the limit manually.
Once you have changed the capacity for the drive and SeaTools for DOS accepts it, completely power down your system to clear any cached information. If you simply restart without completely powering the computer off first, the drive size changes may be lost.
Power the system back on, enter the system BIOS, and set the drives parameters back to Auto-Detect.
Save settings, exit setup and reboot to your operating system installation disc and run the normal installation procedures.
Alternate Settings: Steps 1 and 2 above will not work on some system BIOS’s. This will be noticed by the system still hanging at startup or SeaTools for DOS being unable to detect the drive after the BIOS has been set to none.

Try setting the drives parameters to a User Definable Type with 1024 cylinders, 16 heads, and 63 sectors.
Set the LBA to Normal, Standard or Disabled, Write Pre Comp (WpCom) and Landing Zone (LZ) settings; can be set to zero.
Save settings, exit setup, and power the system off.
Reconnect the power and ATA cables, power the system on, and boot to your operating system installation disc and run the normal installation procedures.
If SeaTools for DOS doesn't detect the drive and you followed all the troubleshooting steps above you may need contact your motherboard manufacturer for a BIOS upgrade or purchase an Ultra ATA PCI adapter card.

Faulty Hard Drive
If after all the above checks and procedures have been performed, you are still having trouble installing the drive, or O/S. It is recommended to run the SeaTools for DOS drive diagnostic utility, to determine if the drive is defective. If SeaTools for DOS returns an error code, please proceed to the Warranty Services Page.

Regards
Max

 

[Wsims]

I've actually visited, chatted and phoned the Seagate company. What I think is the problem is that I need to hook up some kind of IDE hard drive and run windows (I have no other SATA drives) and then go to Start > Run > diskmgmt.msc and create a partition on it. The hard drive is still being recognized, but still as 0 mb.

If anyone has some input, it would be greatly appreciated.

Thanks,

Mr. Sims

 

[Freestone]

When you try to install Vista, what error message are you receiving? If it was XP I would say you would have to supply SATA drivers for the installation. This may be true for a Vista install too.

 

[Wsims]

I can get past the Windows CD Key, and then when it displays the drive where Vista will be installed on... it says there is one found, 0 mb free and 0 mb used.

I contacted Seagate tech support, but they said I would not have to install drivers. And I also did not get a CD when they shipped it to me.

 

[gobleza]

I have a 500Mb seagate barracuda and i had no issues setting it up with windows XP. I think you should try the advice from max8699 and when all else fails, maybe just maybe the drive is bust.

 

[Freestone]

It wouldn't be a Seagate driver but an ASUS supplied driver on a CD with the motherboard.

The fact that BIOS also sees 0MB seems odd. How are the SATA ports configured in BIOS? If AHCI, try setting them to IDE.

 

[jas26]

Hello....I have the exact same problem and also in the process of finding a solution. I have the same 500GB Seagate baracuda Hard Drive. Link:

http://www.seagate.com/ww/v/index.j...e7f43110VgnVCM100000f5ee0a0aRCRD&locale=en-US

I've asked for help as well on a different forum. You can read my story here:

http://forums.getdata.com/showthread.php?p=7725#post7725

Summary: I was running Vista 32-bit on the Seagate HD when the computer turned off. After that...BIOS detected the HD as 0mb!

I have another hard drive which has XP installed. It doesn't detect the seagate HD in My computer. But it detects it in "Safely Remove Hardware" in the system tray.

Im going to take the Seagate to another computer to see if i get any luck.

If anyone else finds a solution please post it!

THanks

 

[G0AOZ]

You didn't say what happens when you run Seagate's own hard disk diags (Seatools) on it?

ROGER - G0AOZ.

 

[jas26]

Hi, When i ran SeaTools... every test failed for the HD except for the "Long Generic" test :S. Every test gave the result in just a few seconds after I started the test (the result being just a FAIL or PASS message).

 

[MikesMultiMedia]

Um - Not sure if this helps but.
I had some serious issues having my Seagate Barracuda 250G sata (2007) model drive being detected early on in the POST. I'd notice the screen say drive not detected.
Then, it would just magically appear, and my Vista would load up as usual.
I had partitioned the drive into two one for OS/Other for data about 40/60 ratio.

I recently tried restoring an Acronis True Image Home v10 backup to the drive's 1st primary partition.

However, scenario 1: Running Acronis Restore from Inside Vista, which would then request a restart - hence loosing "site" of the drive.

Once Acronis sought to restart for the recovery/restore process, and as the POST would proceed, at the very last minute, it "lost" the SATA drive, which caused it to scram and just reboot to the original OS - If it was still present.

Then, Scenario 2: Okay, a reboot results in lost of "site" of the previously detected SATA drive - well lets try it another way - by installing the boot version cd of Acronis True Image Home V10, which allows you to boot from the Acronis True Image cd, and then run the backup/restore proceedure from there "outside/before" windows.

Here, though Acronis TIHv10 loaded just fine, when you sought to find the destination restore drive - or the SATA drive's 1st partition, or any partition, it was not present.

One solution - and only one - meaning possibly others avail:

I decided to install an old 120G Maxtor ATA drive and then reconfigured my POST/setup accordingly. Note I left the SATA in the case and wired, which I also configured in the POST/SETup. Note, pretty much all I did was designate the boot order which was 3.5floppy/cd/dvddrive; then the IDE 120G, not sure even if I had to deal with the seperate menu regarding SATA, just made sure that the POST/Setup found it and that was it.

I then restarted with Acronis' TIHv10 boot cd.

Acronis intercepted the boot process, loaded itself, and presented its menu of optional proceedures - to include the restore procedure.

Note, I saw that there was a "full" or a "safe" mode to start Acronis True Image Home vs. Disk Directory - available aslo on the boot cd.

I then selected this option this time, and as I proceeded throught the select backup archive files/destination drive/partition - there were both the IDE and the SATA drives just sitting there.

So, my problem is perhaps the Safemode start had allowed the SATA drive to appear this time arround, or, somehow the new IDE in the mix caused it as well. I'm thinking the safe mode did it.

Next - I'm now wondering if I just take out the IDE, and try to do exactly what I wanted to do earlier, was to restore to the SATA partition 1 my archived files.

One thing I would say is that by starting in safe mode, I lost the firewire/usb drive visibility - which I was getting along the way and where my archive files are as well. Note I store a copy of the OS BAckup on the data partition of the OS drive. To avoid any issues with "reaching" external drives during these sensitive restores which usually like to work outside of the OS environment.

Now, and by the time I'm done writing this post, the restore is probably done to the 120G IDE. However, I'm curious as to where I should just scrath this effort and go back to the 2partition 1SATA drive system - being that the SATA drive is now visible for restoring to in Acronis True Image home.

I hope this dialogue helps people out there with various issues of 1) Loosing the SATA drive; 2) restoring OS's using Acronis; 3) Using the Safemode/ boot cd Acronis True Image v10 option vs. the boot cd Acronis True Image v10 "full mode" option when implementing the restore proceedure.

MikesMultiMedia.com