[XP]Primary slave not found

[ahmedalmatook]

hi,
my mother board is ASUS, with Phoenix BIOS, I have Maxtor 80GB primary drive and 40GB slave drive.
my PC freeze, i restarted and it did not boot up, an error massage reading

Primary slave not found.
primary IDE channel no 80 conductor cable installed
primary slave IDE channel no 80 conductor cable installed
i reset the bios by removing the battery, when i tried to boot after some time, the problem was still there , and i can not reach the windows window
what am i suppose to do next???

the primary slave is my Documents (all of it)

[photolady]

The message you get is saying your IDE cable, that gray flat thing connected to your drives isn't the correct one. They need to be 40pin/80wire. If they are indeed that type, it's possible that one is bad and needs replacing. Solution, open your computer and check the cable, if it is an 80 conductive wiring, buy a new one.

[jdc2000]

Check the power cable to the second drive as well as the IDE cable. If both are OK, it is possible that your secondary drive has failed. Disconnect it and make sure that the jumper(s) on the primary drive are set correctly for a single (Master) drive, then try booting.

[ahmedalmatook]

thank you for your input,
what i found out
primary IDE channel no 80 conductor cable installed
primary slave IDE channel no 80 conductor cable installed
means the able is there and connected but the drive is not responding
my 2nd hard drive failed, and after removing it the P started properly
thanks again for every one