I have an 486 computer. When I boot it an error message says: "primary HDC failure". When I boot it from a diskette it doesn't recognize the drive c:. Should I use fdisk.exe or look at the setup? This is not the whole problem: I can'f find the bios password to access the setup. I found a list of possible AMOBIOS paswords that I will try to enter-but what to fix in setup? What should I do? I will appreciate any help, Gratefully, Diana

Howdy, Well there is more than one answer to your problem. Best advice is read your e-mail since I wrote ya some and take the system to a tech in your town. Laters, Kevin The Tech Dude.

This simply means that your hard disk is (as they say in England) 'stuffed'. You will need to replace the drive with a new one. If you can't get into the BIOS because you don't know the password, if you disconnect the CMOS battery inside your pc then power pc on, this will reset everything back to default. Cheers The Derby Lad (always of service).

I've had this too. My problem was a loose fitting ribbon cable from HD to Mboard. So loose that fan vibration or HD vibration caused it to slip. Unlikely that you have the same problem, but at least it's easy to check.

hello, I have several defective Hard disks Of Maxtor 8000 seriese ,Western digital,with few (5-10) bad sectors. Making problems under win95. I tried using,format, scandisk, Ontrack diskmgr, norton doctor, QAplus ,but I failed to get rid off these bad sectors permenantly. Is there any software or preformat utility can overcome these bad sectors, and make it ineffective to hard disk operation. Thanks for your help.

Hi: SOS!!! SOS!!! how can I recovered my data from hard disk?I hope do it by myself. Thanks! ONTRACK V4.04 Data Advisor Diagnostic report file created 08/22/1999 @ 12:28 PM The following information has been generated by the ONTRACK(R) Data Advisor(TM) Diagnostic. ONTRACK hopes this information will help you recognize and resolve potential data access problems in a timely manner. * Test results indicate Remote Data Recovery is not possible on your system. This information will be useful to perform a data recovery. Processor Intel Pentium or equivalent BIOS Date 12/23/94 Conventional Memory size 639 Extended Memory size 31744 IO Channel type PCI ------ CMOS: AT-Style Drive1=45, Drive2=0 Table=48, base=F000:E401. There was 1 hard disk drive detected: DISK SIZE MODEL ---- ------- ----- 1 3080 MB IBM-DLGA-23080 Serial Number: G10G10D4203 CommandSet = AT, XBIOS, RECIO, 1K, 2K, EXT13, PORTEDIO Int13 Num = 80, MAX CHS = 5968x16x63, PHYS CHS = 5968x16x63. ParmTable CHS,Rsvd = 20730x176x224, 75 Interface = IDE Configmode = 1, Translator Mode=0 MultiSec=16, BufferSize=192, Capabilities=0F00 Security = 0007, IDECommandSet = 000B4000 Diagnostic Results: Disk 1 is Password-Protected Disk 1 SMART Result: Passed Disk 1 is Password-Protected S.M.A.R.T., (S)elf (M)onitoring (A)nalysis and (R)eporting (T)echnology, a built-in hard disk drive failure prediction method reports an 'Alert' if a problem has occurred. It reports 'Passed' if no problems are found and 'Unsupported' if a hard disk drive does not support S.M.A.R.T. Partition Check Results Error reading MBR on drive 1. Invalid MBR on drive 1. Drive 1 Partitions: ********************************************* DIAGNOSTIC RESULTS: Drive 1 (IBM-DLGA-23080) -Appears password protected, further tests could not be performed The System Memory Test passed. RECOMMENDATIONS: -Disable the password protection and run Data Advisor again. If you don't know how to disable the password, contact the hard disk drive manufacturer. -If you have data to recover, contact ONTRACK Data Recovery. Use of the diagnostic and this information is controlled by the license agreement included with the Data Advisor(TM) software product. Any use for commercial or financial gain, including but not limited to, use in performing technical, consulting or data recovery services is prohibited without the prior written approval of ONTRACK Data International, Inc. Copyright(c) 1997-1998 ONTRACK Data International, Inc.

Yeah yeah my hard drive has the same problem... the primary hdc failure means that you need a new hard drive. I'll get one next year... That computer is old anyways.. It happens mainly to IBM hard disks. Get a new one