Discussion Locked

Hard Drive Failure/CD-Rom not installed

0 helpful

7 replies

by ts1026 Jul 24, 2002 last reply Jul 29, 2002

Closed to new repliesThis discussion is closed. It stays readable, but it takes no new replies.

I am receiving an error when booting "Hard Drive Failure, hit F1 to continue". The computer also does not recognize the CD-Rom. I attached a different CD-Rom, a different Hard Drive, and changed the cables to both. Nothing has worked. Any ideas on what the problem is, or how to fix it?

7 replies

by timwalsh Jul 24, 2002

I'm going to assue that your drive cables are connected properly and both drives are receiving power.

Check and ensure that both the HD and the CD-ROM drive are jumpered properly.

Go through the BIOS setup routine and attempt to have the BIOS autodetect your drives.

If neither of these solve the problem, since you mentioned that you have switched out cables and drives (did you try the drives in a different computer?), I would suspect a possible IDE controller failure. If this is the case, your choices would be to either buy a seperate IDE Controller card or replace your motherboard.

by ts1026 Jul 29, 2002

Poster rated this answer

by rcom Jul 24, 2002

Here's questions and tips that may help with trobleshooting this problem.

What type of machine? Did the drives used to work or has this been happening all along? Does the floppy work? Go ahead and select F1 with a boot disk to test.
Does the drive spin can you hear it?
Does the tray on the CDROM open and does the indicator lights come on?

Since both are not working, I would think or assume there's some problem with the two being connected together. But you did say you replaced the cableS to both which leads me to think they are attached seperately. If connected together or not it's usually jumper settings or cable(s) on the wrong way. You may know this but, the ribbon cable is connected with the colored stripe on the same side as the power connector on the drive.

If you have both connected together connect the CDROM on the secondary IDE connector.

Try connecting just the hard drive first before trying the CDROM that'll be a way to find out if its the CDROM that's causing the problem. Keep in mind that Western Digital drives have an extra jumper setting. Single, Master W/slave, slave and cable select. Most other drives have single W/slave as the same jumper setting with slave and cable select as the other settings. The jumper settings are usually printed on the label of the drive. The CDROM will have slave, master and cable select.