Please help-Booting problems.

[bubagump]

I have owned this computer for a year now. Recently I put in a new hard drive and everything worked well for a couple of days.
Nowadays when I boot the computer up I get any of the following messages at random.

1) Number of IDE drives has decreased. Press any key
2) Insert boot disk in drive A:

If I turn the switch off and turn it back on a couple of times the computer boots normally.

Does anyone have an idea what the problem is?

How can this be solved?

Thanks in advance.

 

[Jiggz]

Need to verify all your connections from the mobo all the way to the last HDD's/CD-Rom. Next get into the Bios and make sure the new HDD is detected properly and the number of ATA and HDD devices listed is correct. If the number of listed ATA devices is not correct check the jumper settings of each ATA Devices and HDD. If everything is OK, it could be a PSU problem. You need to list sys info when you repost.

 

[Double Trouble]

It's also very possible that you have an IDE controller that's going bad, or perhaps one of the IDE devices is going bad (HD, CD etc).

 

[bubagump]

Thanks of the input.
Jiggz and Tagej,
Everything is detected in the bios correctly. I have two harddrives connected to a ATA 100 card and one CDRW drive and a DVD drive connected to a onboard IDE controller.
How can I find out whats going bad?

Another problem which I am having and might be related is that when I shut down windows nowadays I get a message saying "It is now safe to turn off your computer" and then I have to manually shut it down. I never used to get this message before and the computer used to shut down automatically.

 

[JERR]

Do you know if you might be using real-mode vs. protected-mode drivers?

 

[bubagump]

<< Do you know if you might be using real-mode vs. protected-mode drivers? >>



No. Never heard of them. What exactly are there?