Primary IDE Drives Not Detected

[Guest]

Last night my computer died. Going into BIOS, I discovered that the
Primary IDE Master drive and Primary IDE Slave drives were not
detected, despite the fact that I have physical hard drives connected.
The CD-ROM connected as the Secondary IDE Master was detected.

This morning, when I turned on the computer, everything was working
fine. No problems whatever.

What's causing this problem? What should I do other than to be
careful to back up my critical files?

 

[Sjouke Burry]

Last night my computer died. Going into BIOS, I discovered that the
Primary IDE Master drive and Primary IDE Slave drives were not
detected, despite the fact that I have physical hard drives connected.
The CD-ROM connected as the Secondary IDE Master was detected.

This morning, when I turned on the computer, everything was working
fine. No problems whatever.

What's causing this problem? What should I do other than to be
careful to back up my critical files?

Carefully check out your power and flatcable
connections to those disks. It sounds like
an intermittent contact.
I would at least switch the data cable
if I had a new one.
And maybe tighten the female contacts on the
power plugs.