Hi, just found your site and hope someone can help me. Please.... I did a disk defragment last night and left it going all night. When I woke up this morning, it looked like everything was fine; so figured I would restart the machine. It is a windows 98 plus by the way. Anyway when it started up it got to "primary hard drive failed". That is as far as it went. I never did make a rescue disk (dummyme:-(). I haven't a clue on what happened; unless I downloaded something that I shouldn't. I did download a few gifs yesterday. Anyway saw on your site on another posting where someone else's hard drive had failed a couple of things to do; one was a file recovery which I have download on the machine I am using and another is a "boot disk". Not sure which one is better; the file recovery one said that you should use a scan disk as you would lose files for sure. So can anyone help me please; I am not that smart with computers but am trying:-)
Basically I can't get into the other machine to do anything as it just starts to go in then stops at "primary hard disk failed". Sorry repeating myself:-)
Thanks so much if you can tell me what to do. If not, guess it is off to the shop tomorrow.
Wendy

The "primary hard drive failed" message means that you'll be off to the shop soon.

It's not anything you downloaded, it's a physical failure of the hard drive. (Or possibly, but I'd think much less likely, the IDE chanel on your motherboard.)

Sometimes, letting the computer sit for a while (letting the hard drive rest) and then turning it on will let you get into Windows. Sometimes, if you let it sit for a while you'll get the failure message first, but it will boot up fine after hitting the reset button.

Sometimes, if you go into the BIOS settings program (usually by hitting DEL, F1 or F10 right after turning on the computer - just watch the screen for a message that says something like "Press the X-key for settings"), you can look for an option like "Disable Quick-POST" and tell it Y. Or, "Enable Quick-Post" and tell it N. This will make sure your hard drive has time to spin up before it's accessed.

If you do get into Windows, go to the website of the manufacturer of your hard drive. You should find a diagnostic utility to download. And before you shut down, you might want to back up any important data/documents (preferably to CD-R if you've got a CD burner), because you're prolly gonna need a new hard drive soon, even if you can coax it into booting a few times.

EDIT:
And, by the way, welcome to the forums. :)
Sorry you didn't find us under more pleasant circumstances... :(

Thanks for the welcome and also the reply. Was just trying to find something to help me under "search". So you don't think that doing this "recovery" thing or a "boot disk" would help me at all?
Just want to get this right in my head:-)
Wendy

A boot disk pretty much lets you take control of your computer without Windows loading. It usually has some basic utilities and a driver for your CD-ROM.

If your Harddrive has failed a boot disk will not help you to reactive it. As pent pointed out, you can use your floppy drive with a diagnostic utility designed by your Harddrive manufacturer to test its viability.

Also, as mentioned, you can in some instances get Windows to load by pushing the reset button...

Thanks to both of you. I shut down my machine and am waiting and hoping that when it cools and it reboots I can at least get a few more files off of it. I usually back up most of them but haven't for a few days.:(
I am also hoping to get into my computer to find out what it says for my hard drive as on my receipt when I bought it, all it says is Fujitsu Hard Drive stock code HDD10200FUJ. Went onto the Fujitsu site and they have two diagnostic utilities but not sure which one to download. One is for three different hard drives and one is for one; so maybe I should just hope it is one of the three and give it a whirl; if I can't get into the computer to find out which one it has?
One of these days I will be computer literate, hopefully:rolleyes:
Thanks again for the information you posted.
Wendy
ps. Forgot to mention that the reset button didn't help when it was warm; so here's hoping when it is cool..............

Me again; you sure are going to get tired of my questions.:confused:
I thought maybe if I posted the link that someone could tell me which of the diagnostic utilities they thought would work on a 98 plus system that was purchased in 2000. Not sure if that helps, but that is all I have.
Here is the link and thanks for helping.
http://www.fujitsu.ca/download/hdd/sdiag_14.exe
Wendy
ps. Promise I won't bug you anymore.;)

your diagnostic tool for the HDD will be for either EIDE OR SCSI
There should be a sticker on your HDD to tell you what you have


http://www.fcpa.fujitsu.com/download/hard-drives/#diagnostic

That link you gave is a direct down load go to the link above

You would want to the one for the EIDE harddrives.

It looks like you'll need a boot disk. The computer you're currently using, if it is a Win9x can produce one for you. Once you get to the A: prompt you would insert the diagnostic disk. If it has a read me file attached be sure to check that out from the active computer and see what they want you to type to put it to work.

Me again and I am a happy camper.:) I cooled down the computer and it rebooted just fine. I am now on the other one while that one saves all my info onto disks and also have already done a rescue disk. Not sure I will know how to use it if and when the time comes but hopefully. If not, you will see me here begging for help again:-).
Now I am wondering if my hard drive will crash in the near future or if it was just too hot in the house and just one of those things.........
Won't do too much defragmenting. The guy who made my computer told me that it was hard on the disk drive and not to do it too often. I thought he was kidding. Guess not.
Anyway thanks again.....
;) Wendy

Wendy,

I would definitely run the Harddrive diagnostic as soon as you are finished saving your data. I'm not at all sure why letting it "cool its heels" would allow it to reboot, especially, with the error message you received.

It's possible the drive might be heating up and warping sufficiently to prohibit its being able to spin up. The diagnostic probably wouldn't show that up, but it would help to eliminate the possibility of bad sectors or other easily diagnosed problems.

On a healthy hard drive, defragging is actually not a problem and may even be good for it. If the drive is dying, anything is hard on it.

I would still run the diagnostic utility from Fujitsu to see if it is a problem with the drive. If it was getting too hot, it is likely the whole system is getting too hot and you may need to clean it out. With the case open to clean it out (you blow the dust out with canned air), I would also check connections to make sure they are tight, it is possible that you just have a loosely seated cable.

Feel free to come back and ask whatever questions you would like, we hang out around here to answer questions and don't have anything to do if people don't ask.....:)

Hi there Wendy
Don't want to worry you BUT! what model of Fujitsu hard drive do you have? Fujitsu denies this but court action going on in US at moment. See following links for details. back up all software straight away if possble. - try setting as slave and boot into safe mode on other computer to retrieve data (if it will boot at tall).


http://www.opensystems.net.au/newsletter/article.php?ArticleID=42

http://www.dataclinic.co.uk/fujitsu-hard-disk-recovery.htm

The last link will give drive models and syptoms of errors. I have on going fight with Fujitsu about my failed drive. They refuse to aknowledge any drives are faulty to the general public. All these drives were recalled/replaced in Japan

I can supply a couple of more links, but not really essential these two give relevant details.

Thanks for the information Ernie. I have since backed-up all my work and files and have rebooted the machine up a few times; and all seems well, reboots each time. I think that maybe; at least I am hoping; that I overheated the machine defragmenting all night in a hot environment.
At least this was a good warning for me to save everything that I want to disk before shutting the machine down.
Thanks again for everyone's help.
Wendy

Wendy,

I realize that you're backed up now and all...but I'd still suggest running the Fujitsu diagnostics. It may well let you know rather quickly whether you need to shop, if you haven't decided to head to the store already. ;)