Primary disk drive not found

hi goodner,

getting the error "operating system not found" means that the hard drive where the Operating System is installed (i.e. Windows XP, Windows Vista, Windows 7), Cannot be found by you BIOS upon the boot sequence.

When you turn the PC/Laptop, you normal see a screen that flashes flashes with screen that displays the ff:

Primary Master:
Primary Slave:
Secondary Master:
Secondary Slave:

The Primary master should have a value right next to it. If not, either the hard drive is faulty and needs replacement, cable is loose,

If you have a value to it and stil gets the same error the operating is corrupted and needs to be re-installed.

Think about this for a min.

The Primary hard disk cannot be found by the System.
The Diagnostic Utility is ON the Primary hard disk.....OF COURSE IT WON'T FIND IT...

Since the motherboard is not able to even detect the drive as being present, there is nothing YOU can do to get it 'going' unless you replace the BAD hard drive with a new one.

[PS: I hope you've backed-up any important data....]

reset bios setting & select 1st boot hard disc.

First - re-seat the harddisk and reboot the computer. If the computer does not boot up then reboot andgo into the BIOS configuration to see if the BIOS detects the hard drive. If itdoesn't detect the hard drive then it could be faulty.
Then the hard drive needsto be replaced in the computer/laptop, Windows installed and the computer orlaptop's device drivers plus your programs etc. to get a functioningcomputer/laptop again.

when the Acer logo comes up, press Delete (if not delete check the text at the bottom of the screen for the button corresponding to setup) and set the hard disk drive as the primary boot device

if the Hard Drive is set to primary (or referred to as 1st boot device) just leave the laptop at the blinking white curser.. it may just take a while to load if new hardware is found.

Probably the hard drive is dead. Did you drop it recently? Anyway, it could be just the connector, if your good with hardware you could open it and check. I would suggest you to use the warranty though.

From what you describe, you may have a HDD failure. The Inspiron 8000 has a serial bus for the IDE drives and if one drive fails neither will work (If HDD Fails, the CD drive will not read)
Reseat both the HDD and Optical drive and make sure they are detected in BIOS. If HDD is not detected, replace it.

Do a hard drive test from the BIOS accessible throught F10 key as soon as you slide the power button to turn on the computer. Then on the diagnostics screen you should use the primary hard drive test. Depending on the result. Failed. Replace Hard Drive. Passed Reload OS.

your mainboard is broke down. it doesnt see HDD.

Your Hard disk is faulty get is checked by a dell support center.