Piece of junk CPU but it was free!Turned on the CPU and I got the Primary Hard Disk Failure message. I noticed that the Cpu had been crashing alot lately. I had googled the message and tried this suggestion: I tried to isolate the problem. I could hear the drive spinning so I took it and put it in another CPU I had as a slave. I was really concerened about the lost data on it. The drive does work in the cpu now - at least I didn't lose my pictures. So now I am back to the broken CPU. I put another HD in it that was a secondary formatted HD with a few things on it. Now I am getting the Disk Boot Failure Insert Systen Disk. Is this situation indicitive of a problem with the CPU since the "broken" drive actually is working? Am I getting the Disk Boot Failure message now because th drive was formatted but no OS installed? If yes what disk do I put in? I was given this CPU and have the Windows XP CD and my old emergency floppy for I think Windows 98 that I think I might have used when it was given to me dead. Does any of this make sense?

Dude..try the following areas A)Go to BIOS and see what is listed B)Reseat all cables and connectors C)Use propably a different power rail for HD D)Try to use different IDE cables E)Go to BIOS and check the option "LOAD OPTIMIZED DEFUALTS" or "LOAD DEFAULTS". F)Try to disconnect CDROM,Floppy drive ,CDRW etc. G)Try to move the RAM from one slot to the other H)Try the hard disk in both IDE slots i.e both primary as well as secondary.Make sure that this is only connected to the IDE slots and nothing else I)Maybe motherboard is screwes :-s J)I don't give a full "GO" for this advice,but changing the RAMS would do some good Hope the following areas will help you out. Take care.Post your reply

Adding for pointer A)Go to BIOS and see what is listed in the hard disk section.Check whether hard disk is detected or not.

If you put a formatted drive in that has only a few data files and no operating system then of course you get the "Insert a system disk" error message. The PC is looking for a boot record and there isn't one. Go into BIOS. Make sure boot order is set to CD first. Boot up the XP CD and instal the operating system. You will need the licence key that goes with the disk. Hope you got that with the rest of the system. And for future reference the term CPU usually referrs to the actual Processor chip on the motherboard. If you are talking about the system call it a System or a PC. I used to have a signature but it disappeared and I just couldn't be bothered writing another so please feel free to ingore this.

I used Auto Detect in the BIOS and the new HD is not showing up either. Could this mean a faulty cable or? Thanks Richard59 for your correction. I guess that is why I am asking for help because I am only semi-knowledgable! Thanks in advance for any ideas!

Is the tiny jumper on the HDD in the correct position ?? I think it should be in the Master position for BIOS to detect it.

I was wondering how he got all of that stuff done inside his CPU. I could never work inside a chip.