computer problem?

brihy1 · 2006-12-15T04:34:33.000Z

i have a dell optiplex 900 mhz,382 mb,40 gb,sony dvd/rw,cd/rw,windows xp

when i reboot the system the dell logo comes up and it says=primary hard disk drive 1 not found,strike f1 to continue or f2 for setup.

when i hit f1 i go into windows no problem and hit f2 i go to setup no problem. is this something with the bios that is saying no hard disk 1 found ive never seen this before when rebooting,any ideas

thanks bri

DavidR · 2006-12-15T10:59:12.000Z

One thing for sure if you haven’t backed up your data, now is the time and save it to CD/DVD, data files, emails, address book, registration keys/info, custom settings, favourites, etc. The BIOS settings should auto detect drives and if there is a problem it could be there is a problem with the drive rather than the BIOS.

I would suggest a visit to the Dell site and try a search for the specific error you are getting and see what it brings.

Based on your system specifications your drive might be a little long in the tooth, when I start getting drive errors I start planning for a drive replacement.

OrangeCrate · 2006-12-15T12:45:09.000Z

DavidR post:2:

Based on your system specifications your drive might be a little long in the tooth, when I start getting drive errors I start planning for a drive replacement.

Bri, I’ll confirm David’s advice. It was a race at the end, as to whether my new box would arrive from HP, before the hard drive on the old one failed. I was backing up daily just to be sure I didn’t lose any documents or spreadsheets. The first indication that the drive was going, was similar boot errors to what you are receiving now.

system · 2006-12-16T02:08:14.000Z

I’ll echo what David and Orangecrate posted above. My sister just a few days ago lost one her computers at her business with a similar error message. When she called me about it, I told her that it was probably the hard drive and sure enough, 2 days later, it died.

brihy1 · 2006-12-16T02:32:06.000Z

o boy that aint good,ok guys thanks for advice,i have nero does that have a backup tool that i can make a copy of my drive to lets say a dvd?i mean copy system and files?

OrangeCrate · 2006-12-16T02:52:50.000Z

^,

I’m sorry, but I’m not familiar with Nero. But, a quick search for “Nero backup system” gave me this site and page. It mentions something about backups…

http://www.nero.com/enu/PR_2005_10_10.html

If you were just looking for an easily learned backup program for free, you could look at SyncBack for your files and settings. I have used it, and I simply put the backup on a stick. Easy.

SyncBack Freeware V3.2.14 is here:

http://www.2brightsparks.com/downloads.html

Hopefully, someone will come along with a better answer for you. Good luck…

brihy1 · 2006-12-16T05:00:43.000Z

i hit f2 and went into setup and says this?

primary drive 0 hard drive

primary drive 1 unknown device

secondary 0 cd rom reader

secondary 1 cd rom reader

brihy1 · 2006-12-16T06:11:34.000Z

guys problem is fixed wasnt the drive after all,lookin at my last post (f2 setup)i realized that the primary 1 needed to be off in bios so i did that and all is workin fine,thanks everyone,bri

DavidR · 2006-12-16T12:44:43.000Z

Well the scare should still prompt you to take action on a back-up and recovery strategy to cater for the worst case scenario drive failure. I have a hard disk imaging tool called Drive Image 7 (bought out by Symantec), which can take an exact copy of a hard disk partition or clone a drive, there are other drive imaging products out there unfortunately I have no experience of these. Some require that .net framework is installed as does Drive Image 7.

As part of my regular maintenance I take a weekly image of my two partitions on my Primary Drive 0 and copy that to my Second Hard Drive, I can also if I wish copy the image to DVD. I also do daily back-ups of volatile data files and stuff I don’t want to lose as I mentioned above. This makes it easy to recover from almost any disaster in very short order.

What is the device that is being reported as unknown ?
From the same listing it is showing only CD ROM drives and you can’t back anything up to those they are read only devices, you can’t write to them.

OrangeCrate · 2006-12-16T13:14:54.000Z

bri post:8:

…i realized that the primary 1 needed to be off in bios so i did that and all is workin fine…

Out of curiosity, had you gone in and changed that setting at one time, or did the error report just show up out of the blue for no reason recently?

Look, I don’t know anything about BIOS other than to check for updates a couple of times during the life of the box. But it would seem to me, that unless you changed something, it’s not going to change on it’s own.

Not to belabor a point, but I think I would follow David’s advice on a backup scheme, soon. With my limited knowledge of these things, I still think your hard drive may be sending you a message.

(If my reasoning is wrong, I’d appreciate a comment. Always trying to learn something new…)

brihy1 · 2006-12-16T15:38:33.000Z

davidr,the 2 cdrom drives i have are dvd/rw-cd/rw and the reason i ask about nero having that image backup tool is that i have nero?i would still like to make a backup of my drive.

DavidR · 2006-12-16T16:21:45.000Z

Well what ever it is reporting the the Primary and Secondary IDE devices is clearly so old as not to recognise the devices and this could be a factor in the initial problem.

You could possibly flash the BIOS to get the latest one for that motherboard (MB), however, that could be fraught with danger in screwing up the existing BIOS, with old systems the BIOS support is likely to be very limited. I don’t know if Dell are that friendly to allow for the updating of the BIOS by the user.

On my MB it came with software to flash the BIOS so you don’t have to do it from DOS and it also has a second back-up BIOS just in case.

Lisandro · 2006-12-16T16:52:55.000Z

OrangeCrate post:10:

But it would seem to me, that unless you changed something, it’s not going to change on it’s own.

Well, if the CMOS battery is low… maybe you can lost BIOS settings.
But, some other BIOS settings are not ‘stored’ but read on-line, while booting (powering on) the computer, like David said.

OrangeCrate · 2006-12-16T17:32:53.000Z

bri post:7:

primary drive 0 hard drive

primary drive 1 unknown device

secondary 0 cd rom reader

secondary 1 cd rom reader

^, O.K., but how about these? Are these instructions “hardwired” into the BIOS, or are they read online while booting?

DavidR post:12:

Well what ever it is reporting the the Primary and Secondary IDE devices is clearly so old as not to recognize the devices and this could be a factor in the initial problem.

^^, Wouldn’t the error immediately show up when you install the new hardware? I’m assuming the drives have been on Bri’s computer for a while, so as I said, I’m curious as to why the error would show up out of a clear blue sky.

bri post:1:

ive never seen this before when rebooting,any ideas

Lisandro · 2006-12-17T14:17:44.000Z

OrangeCrate post:14:

primary drive 0 hard drive
primary drive 1 unknown device
secondary 0 cd rom reader
secondary 1 cd rom reader
^, O.K., but how about these? Are these instructions “hardwired” into the BIOS, or are they read online while booting?

Generally, read while booting… if you set auto or automatic for detection. Only if you set MANUAL, they will be ‘saved’ and not read all the times.

OrangeCrate post:14:

Wouldn’t the error immediately show up when you install the new hardware? I’m assuming the drives have been on Bri’s computer for a while, so as I said, I’m curious as to why the error would show up out of a clear blue sky.

It shouldn’t… the error should be shown at BIOS loading…

system · 2006-12-17T15:18:17.000Z

bri post:11:

… the reason i ask about nero having that image backup tool is that i have nero?i would still like to make a backup of my drive.

The full version of Nero has this option

http://img270.imageshack.us/img270/2060/nerose9.png

Just choose Back Up Files from the StartSmart gui.

EDIT: There’s also an option to back up an entire drive or partition.

OrangeCrate · 2006-12-18T01:14:49.000Z

^^,

Thanks Tech.

brihy1 · 2006-12-18T03:42:56.000Z

thanks mauserme,i have nero 6 full

system · 2006-12-18T04:16:53.000Z

Nero 6 also has Back Up - just not as many options as 7.

system · 2006-12-18T07:47:21.000Z

Hello,
I have an HP pavilion ze4400 laptop with Windows XP, home edition. I have installed AVAST anti virus. When I reboot the laptop the On-Access Scanner stops working. The AVAST icon on the tray indicates zero providers running. When I review the settings for the seven shields the sensitivity for all has been changed from “Normal” to “Custom” if I click on “Customize”, access is denied. It seems as if some one has gained control of my laptop. The problem has been going on for several months. Some times On-Access protection will work after many reboots. I have ran several ad-ware scans (Avast, AVG, Ewedo, Trend Micro House Call,2d-Aware SE and others) but the scans do not find any viruses. Most recently I turned off System Restore and ran several scans on safe mode and one scan on normal mode and once again, except for some cookies, no viruses were found. After the scans On-Access Scanner started working and I turned System restore back on but, a windows update rebooted my laptop and, the Scanner is now not working.
Any suggestions?

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