Data recovery and disk repair questions and discussions related to old-fashioned SATA, SAS, SCSI, IDE, MFM hard drives - any type of storage device that has moving parts
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Primary Hard disk failed message during POST

December 7th, 2008, 3:15

Well, I have a Samsung 40 GB PATA HDD( I know its long time I upgraded . but i terribly need to recover this HDD). I think i disconnected this HDD before I turned off the power supply. Ever since I get an error during post :

Detecting Primary master ...SP0411N
Detecting primary slave...
etc
etc etc..

and then :

Primary Master Disk failed.

I think it should be a ESD problem since i had not disconnected the power supply before removing this drive. But then, when I boot using a Ubuntu live CD, I can see that all files are intact. I tried this drive on another comp and the result was same. I ran Sea Tools for dos on this drive and the drive passed both the short test and the long test.

What do you suggest I do ?

In case I manage to create a image of this disk and load the image on to another HDD, do you think i will be able to boot into it ?

Re: Primary Hard disk failed message during POST

December 7th, 2008, 3:42

Get your files and copy to a new drive then use it as doorstop. Or get the drive serviced if possible. I can fully recertify it - if there is no excessive damage - as brand new, but I bet you don't want to spend a dime on it so the entire discussion is pointless.

Re: Primary Hard disk failed message during POST

December 7th, 2008, 3:52

I am in India and you are in Italy . So, I don think its gonna work out even if i am willing to spend .......

Re: Primary Hard disk failed message during POST

December 7th, 2008, 6:56

In India? contact Amarbir :D :D

Re: Primary Hard disk failed message during POST

December 7th, 2008, 11:22

itsmeyourenemy wrote:In case I manage to create a image of this disk and load the image on to another HDD, do you think i will be able to boot into it ?


Yeah, After imaging it will boot to another drive (Sector By Sector)

Re: Primary Hard disk failed message during POST

December 8th, 2008, 0:27

Which imaging software would u suggest ?

Re: Primary Hard disk failed message during POST

December 8th, 2008, 1:24

If the problem is not degenerative in nature something along the lines of dd should be fine, or anything capable of a byte-level copy.

If the problem is degenerative you have a large risk of additional damage to the drive by attempting to image it yourself.
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