# Solved: 4th Master Hard Disk Error



## White Wolf 00 (Dec 18, 2006)

Tech Support Guy System Info Utility version 1.0.0.2
OS Version: Microsoft Windows XP Home Edition, Service Pack 3, 32 bit
Processor: AMD Athlon(tm) 64 X2 Dual Core Processor 6000+, x86 Family 15 Model 67 Stepping 3
Processor Count: 2
RAM: 2047 Mb
Graphics Card: ASUS EAH5450 Series, 1024 Mb
Hard Drives: C: Total - 238464 MB, Free - 208201 MB; D: Total - 76316 MB, Free - 56031 MB; I: Total - 953868 MB, Free - 952582 MB;
Motherboard: ASUSTeK Computer INC., M3A
Antivirus: avast! Antivirus, Updated: Yes, On-Demand Scanner: Enabled

About 6 months ago, I installed a 1TB HDD in my system. It has worked fine until about a month or so ago. About that time, when I wanted to save a document to the drive, it took approximately 15 to 20 seconds to access the drive. Last week when I booted my system, it took approx 1 to 1/2 minutes to get past the BIOS splash screen and then I got an error message:
"4th Master Hard Disk Error. Press F1 to resume." I pressed F1 and the system went to the Windows Start up screen. At this time, the system blue screened and rebooted. It did this 4 times before it continued to another screen. The screen was black with a blue bar across the top and in the middle of the screen was the word "Wait". I waited. In fact I waited all night. I left the system running all night and in the morning it hadn't changed. On a hunch, I shut the system down and disconnected the 1TB drive. This time when I rebooted, Win XP started normally. Since this was a SATA drive, once windows was up and running, I reconnected the drive. Again, the system blue screened and tried to reboot. I got the same error message. I disconnected the drive and rebooted with no problem. At this point, I was desperate because I had a lot of documentation on the drive that I had to have so I disconnected the drive and rebooted 3 times. It finally picked up the drive. I backed up the drive and then shut the system down. 

The next day I was back to square 1. I followed the procedure I used previously and again Windows picked up the drive. 

Today I was getting really ticked off so when it told me to press F1, I did. I did this 3 times and on the 4th try, Windows started normally. I let the system run for about a half hour and then rebooted with the same error message. Again, on the 4th try, the system started normally. As you can see from above (Total - 953868 MB, Free - 952582 MB), The drive is active but the same problem persists when I try to save a document to the drive only now it takes approximately 2 1/2 to 3 minutes to access the drive before I can save the document. However, in Windows Explorer, it takes no time at all to access and view a saved document.

This is extremely frustrating because I really need the drive space. I had to use a 320 Gig drive and 4 flash drives totaling 25 gigs in order to back up this drive. As it stands right now, I don't trust the 1TB drive. 

Any suggestions before I RMA this drive back to Western Digital?

Thanks

Rob


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## White Wolf 00 (Dec 18, 2006)

I found the problem. My 1TB drive is gone. After a few tries, it would activate. Now it won't start at all. I'm just waiting for the RMA info from WD. Thanks anyway folks. Rob


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