I'm writing this from a Dell Precision 330 workstation which has developed a strange BIOS issue. When I switch on I get the Dell BIOS splash screen for about a minute - then a message saying something like

"Primary Master drive not found.
Primary slave drive not found.

Press F1 to continue or F2 to enter Setup."

I know there's a drive in there so I press F1 and everything boots up just fine! I'm writing from the PC in question!!!

Can anyone suggest what the BIOS problem might be and how can I solve it?

TIA

Huw

Hello Pioden Welcome to PCHF

What that would indicate to me is either a failing primary IDE controller, or just a glitch in the BIOS. It may indicate a failing hard drive, but since it shows both master and slave, I doubt that is the case.

If you can open your case and find out what the manufacturer of the hard drive is, you can go to their website and download a bootable hard drive diagnostic tool. It will be free. Just create a bootable disk with it then boot to it and run the hard drive diag. That will tell you if your hard drive is in good condition.

The next thing to try is switching the IDE channel that your drives are on....if your motherboard has a second IDE port. If you do have a second IDE port, move your IDE cable to that port. If that gets rid of the message, then I think your primary IDE channel is going bad. Just leave the cable in the second port in that case.

If neither of those things help, you can try flashing your BIOS. You need to go to the Dell support page for your particular model and get the newest BIOS revision...if they have it. I must warn you however, follow the instructions for the BIOS update VERY carefully. If you use a BIOS update for the wrong Dell model, or if you have a power outage during the update, or don't follow the instructions correctly, you could permanently damage your machine. I'm sure Dell will let you know that 100 times too

If none of those things help and the message keeps popping up, then I think there is probably a problem on your motherboard. Only time will tell if it is a catastrophic problem.

Hope that helps!