HDD Error ..... HELP!

[Brave01Heart]

Hi

My daughter uses her Packard Bell computer for her school studies and the other day when she turned on the computer, the computer would not complete POST.

I have since checked it and the drive is shown during POST, under "PRI MASTER", it shows the following (I pressed "PAUSE" so that I could read the message):

"Ultra DMA Mode 4 S.M.A.R.T. capable but command failed!

After pressing "ESC", it then showed "PRI MASTER HDD ERROR".

The drive is also shown in the BIOS and I have tried disconnecting and reconnecting the IDE cable and power lead and also changed the IDE cable for a brand new one but I still get the same error.

Now, my daughter has her school course work on the drive and I would like to know if the drive is beyond saving or is there some way that the course work can be saved and if so, what needs to be done and is any software required?

BTW, the hdd is a WD 20GB UDMA4 and the system board is a Gigabyte Intel baord.

Regards

Brave01Heart