Help! Computer cannot detect hd every other reboot!!!

[hydrobum]

This problem of mine has been going on for awhile now but it getting kinda annoying. I have a Maxtor and Seagate had in my p2 400. Clean install of W2K. Every other reboot, b4 windows kicks in, the system gives me an error saying that no system disk on hd.
Now if I shutdown and wait a few min, it boots up fine. Also happened with win98. Don't know if it is my hd or mobo that is faulty. Anyone have any idea?

Oh, don't know what stupid mobo this is. Got it from micronix somewhere. This only started happening this year and I've had it for almost 3 years now.

Thanks

 

[dkozloski]

Look in the BIOS and see if there is a setting for "HD detect delay" or something similar. Possibly your motherboard starts looking for the hard drive before it has given a "drive ready" signal.

 

[ajskydiver]

Experiencing the same problem with a computer here at work...the hard drive is failing in this computer--sometimes it will appear...other times won't...sometimes will have data on it...sometimes it shows no partition.

I'd backup and look for a replacement asap.

~AJ

 

[hydrobum]

So you think it's the hd error? Even when I tried to just switch hd to boot from, it won't detected b4 getting into windows. I can definitely detect it in the bios and there is no setting for delayed boot whatsoever......bummer...

 

[dkozloski]

I have a computer with 10k RPM drives that sits in an unusually cool room. During the boot process it often hangs because it tries to detect the drives before they are up to speed. I have gotten in the habit of doing a soft boot shortly after power on to give it a litle more time to get up to speed. When it's warm everything is okay. Some motherboards have a setting for a delay time before detecting the drives just for this reason.