Forgive me, I'm not terribly computer savvy.

Recently my computer crashed, it wouldn't let me get to the desktop. So i decided to reinstall windows, hoping it would fix the issue.

To my dismay, I now RECEIVE an error message saying something along the lines of "Windows detected an error on the primary IDE drive, drive 0 is functioning outside of normal specifications"

Can anyone give me a clue as to what is wrong? Or how to fix it?

Thanks for your timemore details regarding the make model of the computer would help us diagnose a bit better?
what make model of the hard drive?
what make model of the motherboard?
what BIOS version is on the motherboard and when was it last UPDATED?

using the details you have given us
the message is a severe warning of disc failure, you really require a new drive as soon as possible.

or it could be also a loose or damaged IDE cable,

or the drive could be set as Master but the BIOS is set at cable select, and you have connected the drive to the MIDDLE connection which should be for the slave drive,

or LBA is not set in the BIOS,

the drive could have an image layer product on it which has been destroyed by the format you have done which has created a drive size which the BIOS cannot read or write to, the BIOS might have to be updated to enable it to use a larger drive than it has on the IDE controller

Some larger harddrives were imaged with a overlay which enabled it to be used by OLDER BIOS.
there is a diagnostic tool from here:-
http://support.wdc.com/download/windlg/windlg10.exe
Like I said, I'm amateur at best when it comes to computers. Consequently, I don't have or know how to get that information.

If it's of any use, I'm working on a standard dell dimension 4550.

I would like to explore the possibility of this being a piece of damaged hardware, or a loose cable. What does this piece of hardware look like? Where in the computer might I find it?