My hard disk is Maxtor ATA 80G. when i boot up it is detected as Maxtor, and later at the bottom line it says Primary Hard disk failed. when i go to BIOS. the boot section tells None. and even the auto detect cannot identify maxtor.

i hve slaved it with another computer. i can see it. its partitioned into two. i formatted the first partition but when i put it back again on my computer to have a new system installed it still cannot be detected. What should i do? please help any wise men there

When you put it back did you put it back as Primary Master?

If so did you reset the jumpers?

Does the BIOS see it now?

To test the integrity of the drive you can try PowerMax:

http://www.maxtor.com/portal/site/Ma...&downloadID=22

To re-install the drive MaxBlast may help:

http://www.maxtor.com/portal/site/Ma...&downloadID=57

I have observed, that when i put my maxtor hard disk to the primary ide of different motherboard. i dont see the Primary Hard Disk Fail message. it can be detected by my other computer using a Windows 98 OS. but when i put it back to my new computer with an asus motherboard. the problems returns.

So what i did, i made it a slave in the secondary IDE connecting with the CDROM. it is detected in my windows, as Drive E. but during boot up that Failure Message returns, but it seen during operation of Windows XP.

Perhaps try a different cable on the Primary Channel.

Verify your jumper settings plus the BIOS settings for Auto-detect as well as Boot Menu.

If the cable is good on the Primary Channel you might want to reinstall XP.

Which brings up this confusion on my part:

but during boot up that Failure Message returns, but it seen during operation of Windows XP.

That error is a BIOS error not able to boot that drive.

Do you have XP installed on another drive as well?

If you could describe your setup in detail it might help us help.

The Maxtor HD is readable on other motherboard with Windows 98 OS. it is well detected there.

Using the same cable, i put it back to my asus motherboard. there goes the message again. I put up another HDD Drive (an old one) as primary with Windows XP as system. Its been detected. I made the Maxtor as slave of my CDROM Drive.

So XP Started, the Maxtor Drive can be detected by the XP System. only in the BIOS Detection is having a problem.

The BIOS is not detecting that drive as a bootable drive.

I would suggest running PowerMax on that hard drive as posted in post #2.

If the drive passes the PowerMax tests I would suggest reinstalling XP onto it.

the Maxtor HDD has no problems when attached to other motherboard.