I AM TRYING TO PUT IN A NEW OS AND THE COMPUTER STOP RESPONDING AFTER A SHORT BOOT UP. LAST LINE IS “ PRIMARY SLAVE HARD DISK FAIL” IF I CHANGE THE HARD DRIVE’S LITTLE PLUG THAN IT WILL SAY “PRIMARY HARD DISK FAIL”
AT THE BOTTOM OF THE SCREEN IT DOES STATE TO HOLD DOWN THE “DEL” KEY AT THE START BUT THERE IS NO RESPONSE.
ANNY SUGESTIONS TO MY PROBLEM?
THANK YOU

First, please turn off the caps lock. All caps is usually considered yelling...

Couple of suggestions, check the cabling and jumpers, make sure the cables are plugged in securely and the jumpers are correct. Pay close attention to the jumper settings of BOTH master and slave drives. Sometimes the Master drive will have different settings for single drive and master in a dual drive system, that can maje a big difference. Also keep the Master at the end of the cable and slave on the middle connector.

Try a different IDE ribbon cable, they do go bad, and check the drive manufacturers' websites for their installation and diagnostics software. If BIOS, fdisk and the manufacturer's software all cannot detect a hard drive, chances are it's dead.

BIOS reporting a drive failure is often an indication of exactly that, hard drive failure, so don't be surprised if the drive is toast. Sometimes it can be because of a cable, so be sure and try a different ribbon cable.

It's probably not a bad controller, BIOS will report a controller failure if that is the case.

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