Need Help (Computer Nerds WELCOME)

[shad0ws]

I currently own an Asus CG5270. Rebooted it the other day to install some Windows updates and left off overnight. Booted it up the next day and I'm getting a "Primary Master Hard Disk Error." I immediately figured the hard drive had bit the dust. I rebooted and entered the BIOS to check and see if it was still recognized. Still showing in the BIOS so my next move was to try and install Windows 7 again and reformat the drive hoping that the recovery disk would recognize the hard disk since the BIOS was and I could reformat from there.

Well, I received no luck in that process. When I boot up with the recovery disk, I get to the format screen but it tells me "CD/DVD Device Driver is missing." That pretty much left me stumped. I then proceeded to try and boot up without the CD/DVD drive plugged in but I still get the Master Hard Disk error. Next, I found an old 80GB SATA drive and replaced my original 750GB SATA drive with this old one. Wala, the computer booted right up from that hard drive.

From there I knew that the motherboard, data cable, and power cables were good. This once again put me back to thinking the hard drive was bad. Went out and bought a Seagate 1TB SATA drive and installed that, same errors. Took my old 750GB drive and the new 1TB drive to another computer and both of them work. I've tried booting up with different sticks and amounts of ram in different locations sourced from the motherboard manual. Nothing seems to work. I would really appreciate any kind of help, sorry for the long read.

 

[daredevil95]

You need a computer forum....there's plenty of them out there and those guys love those type of problems!!!

 

[thomas91169]

can you mount that drive in another PC and run the manufacturers tools on it to see if that helps?

My sister had a seagate that went out but I was able to bring back to life with some of their online tools.

 

[shad0ws]

I've posted on one, I also know that there are quite a few guys on this forum who know their way around a computer pretty good.

 

[BLK03SVT10TH]

When you did the Windows Updates were you performing a Custom with some Hardware Updates selected? Did you possibly install an Update for the SATA Controller?

 

[CobraBob]

That's weird. Your original 750gb SATA drive wouldn't boot. An older 80gb SATA drive booted up fine. A new 1tb SATA drive wouldn't boot. So all three were SATA drives. I've wracked my head but can't come up with any reason why 2 out of the 3 SATA drives would fail to boot. I could understand it if your original 750gb hard drive wasn't a SATA drive, which would possibly point to the SATA conttroller. Weird. Definitely post this issue on 2-3 hardware forums and hopefully someone will offer up a solution.

 

[txyaloo]

That's weird. Your original 750gb SATA drive wouldn't boot. An older 80gb SATA drive booted up fine. A new 1tb SATA drive wouldn't boot. So all three were SATA drives. I've wracked my head but can't come up with any reason why 2 out of the 3 SATA drives would fail to boot. I could understand it if your original 750gb hard drive wasn't a SATA drive, which would possibly point to the SATA conttroller. Weird. Definitely post this issue on 2-3 hardware forums and hopefully someone will offer up a solution.

I'm not sure how this helps the op? You just summarized his first post without adding anything...



Op, first thing I'd do is update the bios. Some older systems have problems recognizing drives over 500gb, 1tb, etc. I realize the system recognized the drive previously, but something may have been scrambled during the reboot.

Next, I'd try and see if your system has a SATA controller driver available. If your SATA controller is in AHCI (RAID) mode, it is possible Windows would not recognize the DVD or hard drive while you tried doing your repair. I've also seen similar errors when the BIOS has been switched from regular SATA mode to AHCI mode in addition to the reverse.

 

[Sap]

Im bored at work so here goes.

1). Stick with one drive, probably the 750gb and put it back into your computer.
2). Start in the Bios, does it recognize the drive? If not check your cables and power and settings in the Bios for drive detection if there are any.
3). If its recognized in the bios but still comes up with the error see if you can disable the error message and move forward
4). You said the brand new drive didn't work, that leads me to believe its a bios issue, you can either do a soft reset in the Bios settings or pull the battery from the Motherboard to do the trick.
5). If the drive still doesn't detect it may actually be "dying" in that there are a ton of bad sectors on it, put it in your other PC and run a check disk on it. Once cleaned up try booting to it again.

Thats a start, good luck.