MASTER HARD DISK ERROR..PRESS F1 TO RESUME

Happy new year to me? "-( not too happy.

WinXP Pro/ Q6600 Intel Core 2/ 3.3Gb DDR (pc6400/MSI P-35 Platinum MoBo/ GeForce 8600GT

I was told that this message - HARD DISK ERROR" could be the operating system as well as maybe a hard drive issue...is this right? I always thought this is a hard drive problem.

Well, here's the thing. I am at the library because something strange is going on,and my computer is hanging and not responding. I've been getting the black screen with Hard disk Error Message, try to go to safe mode,then to command prompt, then to start windows normally, then to the start in Last known settings that worked, but it all takes me back to the Hard Disk error message. Maybe once or twice I can get on to the desktop, but then it just hangs, or I can get as far as the Welcome screen, then it hangs and hangs.

I have two SATA Western Digital Hard drives. 74GB Raptor for applications, and 500GB for storage. when I am doing anything on the computer, It's been hanging recently and I ran the WD Data Lifeguard utility, the "Quick" and the "Extended" test on drive 2 (500GB) which came back with bad sectors which it repaired,then showed healthy. The test on the Raptor showed up as HEALTHY as well. This worked fine for a day and then I get this black screen with "MASTER HARD DISK ERROR..PRESS F1 TO RESUME." again.

Before I left to come here to the library to post this, I called Western Digital and of course they told me it may be my Windows operating system,since the utility showed them as healthy. he told me to hook up each drive to another computer to test...WHAT? Another computer?

Well I do have an old antique compact with 256RAM 1.2 GHz AMD CPU and is slower than ratsnot. if I were to test, I'd have to use to IDE cables to each of the drives. The western digital guy told me that my WinXP Pro OS could be the problem, so does this mean I will have to wipe the hard drives and reinstall Windows,all the apps,hardware,drivers,all over again only to find out it is one of the hard drives?

Wish I could just plop in the original WinXP Cd to over write the old OS, and hope for the best!

Thanks to all that reply, and a happy new year to those who do not.

Sounds like your 500 is going bad. Once you start getting bad sectors, it will only get worse.

disconnect it and see if your system boots with the raptor only. I'm guessing that you put Windows on the raptor.

Midknyte,
Hello, Long time! You've always helped me in the past, and i do appreciate your time. yes Midknyte, I put the OS and all the apps on the raptor,and all the pictures and music on the 500GB. I have until December of 2010 for warranty to expire,and another two years for the raptor,so I hope at least the raptor holds on a bit longer then this 500.
Once you get the bad sectors, I think it's only get worst,regardless of the onboard Lifeguard ulitiy it has. Now if on;t I can convince Western Digital to get me a RMS replacement. So you agree that this is solely a harddrive, hardware problem and NOT an operating system, like WD told me.

PS, Is Western Digital an ok product? Are there other better products out there? Both these drives are only 2yrs old!

Thanks again!

Occam's Razor - the obvious answer is usually the correct one. Take the 500 out of the equation and see what happens. Eliminate the suspects.

When you ran the WD diags, it should have given you an error code. Report that code when you try to get a replacement.

Hard drives are mechanical devices. It's not if they will fail, it's when. I don't think WD is that much better or worse than Seagate or other manufacturers.

well I got malware and spyware slammed because ATT removed my security and is now charging extra for it. Anyway I could not get anywhere with the malware constantly causing havoc with my temperament the way it was, so I decided to just reformat just the Drive1,(bootdrive) which is the 74GB Raptor with all the OS and apps.

I kept the 500Gb (storage) loaded up, and have not yet bypasssed the 500GB to check if I still get the Error message upon boot up. I'd like to know if I would still be getting the error message originating from drive2,even though the raptor74GB is the boot drive?

besides all that, after reinstalling Windows,drivers,software and hardware,I now find that my onboard Realtek HDSound device is not being recognized. I've been to the MSI website, downloaded the latest, INTEL INF update,Realtek network ethernet driver,the realtek AC'97 driver, and the Realtek HD Audio driver,and it still tells me i am missing a soundcard and is searching for a RtkHDAUD.sys file that I thought was on the install CD from MSI. It never ends!!!!

BOTH ISSUES SOLVED!!!!!
Western Digital 500HDD- Bad Sectors and on it's way OUT after two years,so I sent in an RMA and will be getting a replacement HDD. The Raptor 74GB booted right up into Windows w/o the 500GB,but with the 500GB plugged in, all kinds of issues!

AUDIO-MSI P35 Platinum / WinXP PRO 32 SP2/ Intel Quad 6600 Core2/ PC6400- 3.3GBDDR / NVidia GeForce 8600GT PCI-E /REALTEK HD AUDIO onboard sound.

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If anyone has suffered what I have in the last week or so of not having any sound after a WinXP reformat, try this, it worked for me.

Quote:

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Start Windows XP in safe mode (slam F8 a bunch while the computer is starting up, until you see a menu)
Open Hardware Manager, and find this: "Microsoft UAA bus driver"

Delete it, and any other audio devices, including the one you're trying to install (Not the codecs) and restart, back into another safe mode. Run the setup.exe again, and tell me what happens.

Edit: If the "Microsoft UAA Bus Driver" doesn't want to uninstall, right click it, and disable it, restart into another safe mode, and then try to delete it.

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Here is the setup.exe file (WDM_R240.exe) (v.2.89) (79.9mb) WinXP 32/64 (there are other O.S.’s there)

http://www.realtek.com.tw/downloads/
Go to Realtek - DOWNLOADS> COMPUTER PERIPHERAL ICs> High Definition Audio Codecs (Software)

They also have the AC’97 Codecs (software too, but I never used that for this fix)

I would LOVE to thank all of you who chimed in to help me resolve this issue..Much appreciated!