Last week I restarted my computer and at bootup it says that the primary slave cannot boot, press F1 to resume. I have a WD 320GB which has windows installed on it. The primary slave is a WD 500GB with a lot of data on it. It make loud clicking noises as if it is trying to boot it up, but it eventually just gives me the F1 option to continue without it. Any help with restoring this hard drive? Even if I could somehow get my files off of it, anything? Is it dead forever?!?! Thanks.

When i have problems like that i use windows PE to either restore mbr or get files when i can't boot the OS.

http://www.windowspe.com/

I can get to my OS, I have XP Pro on my 320GB, that works perfectly fine. It just wont load my Primary Slave anymore (the 500GB) and it doesn't have an OS installed on it.

Well ,,first of all there is no way in hell that windoze should be telling you that it cannot boot from a primary slave ,,if there is a primary master detected first,,so you have a problem there,and without another mobo to test it with ,plus the fact that it is making "a loud clicking noise" methinks that the hdd is either dead or dying,,sorry ,,,about the only thing you could attempt is to boot from a floppy with only the 500 installed and use the fdisk /mbr command and maybe you will get lucky,the noise that you are hearing is most probably the read/write head/arm hitting the stopper inside the hdd there are utilities dos/windoze based like disk data and disk investigator that will allow you to low level edit the hdd,,if you can get to it,but if you can not get to it,,,,,I had the same thing happen to a 120 and a 160 WD hdd's.Though I was lucky in that I was able to RMA then but all the data was lost,bitch,, I know just have to forget it all immediately,onother thing if you shake the hdd,gently but firmly and you hear the same sound,, titsup,,hopefully you can RMA it..
The only other thing that I can suggest,as a last resort ,,would be to reset your bios,maybe you might get lucky,would not count on it though,it's that clicking thing see..:> )

i have never seen so many commas in my life!

lulz... If it clicks dont let it run anymore than u have to until u decide if it will/wont work enough to get data off... it's definately dead/dying... sury...
Step 1) can u see it in bios if yes continue if no give up
step 2) unmount bad drive and install os on 500 drive
sept3) reconect drive and quicly try to copy wut u can to 500... if it's not seen in os then it's toast...

maybe if it's not seen in Bios u can do wut im doing and thats switch the pcb board.. but I think im crazy to try it so judge for yourself. -J