Primary Master Drive Fails

You may have hard drive going bad or their is a virus

Boot Computer and open the CMOS panel to Bios,on the configuration panel go to the Auto detect HDD drives,also check the list and set the drive configuration to Auto,exit and save,reboot and you should be able to see the drive

Other option if using Windows98,insert startup disk in floppy drive boot computer and select the option to run setup without cd-rom support,
at command prompt type FDISK,when the panel opens select option 4 to view the drive information

Check to make sure that their is nothing wrong with the cable and it is installed properly

If you have two hard drives check drives jumper configurations is set to Master and Slave properly

I have looked for the option to read the HDD, but I don't see anything like it in BIOS. It has only one HD. WHat is weird, is it see's both the CDROM and CDRW drives, just not the HD. This is very frustrating if you know what I mean.
Thx again....

Sounds like a corrupt Master Boot Record.
Put your startup disk (floppy) in & at the prompt type
"dir C:"
Then type
"fdisk /MBR"
This will recreate the Master Boot Record which is causing the drive not to be start, it's perfectly safe to do & won't affect anything on your harddrive.

As mentioned you may have a virus, so update your Antivirus software & scan your system.
Most MBR viruses are easy to remove & don't cause any damage.

Somebody explain, If the BIOS isn't seeing the drive and after hitting F1 to continue how will there be a drive to run fdisk on???

Can you hear the drive startin up at all?

If not, the controller on the hard drive or mother board isn't working or there's a loose/bad power connection. If the ribbon cable was bad you'd still hear the drive spinning up.

Since you know it works, disconnect the ribbon cable for the cdroms and use it to test the hard drive. Do the same with the power connector. If it still doesn't come up, try the hard drive on the second IDE connection on the mother board to see if the BIOS can find it there. If you can get the drive to come up that way then at least the drive's OK. If it's a western digital drive and you've disconnected another drive or cdrom from it you must change the jumper setting on the drive from "master w/slave to single". Most other drives only have "master/single, slave and cable select".

Ok, the damn drive still doesn't come up. Remove the drive, hold it tightly in your hand palm up, give it a couple of good swift turns like turning a door knob. Make sure to keep the drive level.
You may even hear it start spinning. Reinstall and see if it comes up. This sounds crazy I'm sure but I've had this work plenty of times when drive's head become magnetically stuck to the platters this is simular to a crash but not quite the same, its know as stiction.

Good luck

I've had this exact same problem several times. After checking the cables and still no results, I simply reset the CMOS and the computer boots up fine. This simple fix has worked for me every time without fail.

I finally got ahold of someone from the ASUS (board manufacturer). They said the BIOS is old and I need a new chip and for $70.00 they will send me a new chip that will fix my large HD problem. They say it won't recognize a drive over 10 GB and I aminstalling a 45 GB. I ordered it and will see if this fixes my problem.
Thanks for all your support and ideas.

To answer RCOM, you reboot again with your startup disk in the floppy drive, the bios is searching for a boot device & sees the floppy which now contains boot record info. It doesn't see the hard drive because their's something wrong with the MBR soit just skips it. Using Dos tools like fdisk & format will make the bios recongnize the drive again the same way it does when you first install a drive.
Read through this site for a better understanding.

http://www.pcguide.com/ref/hdd/file/structMBR-c.html

Is this a "new hard drive" your installing or a previously working drive thats giving you trouble, the answer to this is very important in helping you. Also the size of drive, how many partitions & whether you have more than one OS installed on thisdrive.

Well it is finally up and running. The problem was the SCSI Side Pro66 needed an updated driver for the card. After speaking with ASUS Support and ESupport they kept telling me I needed new BIOS for the ASUS P3B-F Mother Board. The only way to get it was to send them $79.00. I sent the $$ and no change. Thanks for all your assistance and ideas, I tried them all, iwth no luck.
Thanks again....RM

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