Similar problem to "Hard Drive Failing?"

[absinthe]

I noticed the other thread about the failing hard drive. My problem is very similar. I built my box a little over 2 years ago, and it's really never given me any major problems. But now, sometimes I'll come home to find a black screen with the DISK BOOT FAILURE, INSERT SYSTEM DISK AND PRESS ENTER message on the screen. It's like it spontaneously reboots and can't find the hard drive. Sometimes I'll have to cold boot 6 or 8 times or more. During bootup, when it's detecting drives, it says something like 'Detecting primary master: none detected ... detecting primary slave: none detected,' and then I get the 'DISK BOOT FAILURE' message. If I enter the BIOS setup, which I'm sometimes forced to do, under the BOOT menu the only options listed are the floppy drive and the CD drive.

After several tries, I can hear the hard drive whirring up almost like a darned lawnmower (it's always made an usual sound ... it's a Maxtor). Finally, it's detected, and the computer boots up just fine.

Very odd. I guess my question is: Does this indeed sound like imminent hard drive failure? It's been going on for about 3 weeks now, and happens every 2-3 days. I was wondering if it could be something wrong with the motherboard, which is an Asus P3V4X.

Perhaps it's a dumb question 🙂. But with the tax holiday this weekend, I was thinking it might be a good time to purchase a new hard drive.

Advice is appreciated.

Thanks!

--Aaron

 

[Gambler]

I am having a similar problem with a Maxtor drive and Asus A7V33 motherboard. No solution yet. I plan on running Maxtor's POWERMAX diagnostic program to check out the drive (if the system will detect it!).

 

[Shelleybean]

I have a Maxtor hard drive and have been having the same problem. In fact, I came to this forum to find out what I can do about it. My hard drive is only a year old , so I'm somewhat upset if I need to replace it already. 🙁

 

[Souka]

two thoughts to consider.

1. Does your motherboard support HD pre-delay? If so, enable it and give the hd time to spin up before being required to being accessed. Gateway desktops (P2 or P3 variety) have this option. It allows the HD to spin up and get ready before the system querry's it for info or accessing data.

2. If this is a problem that has developed, contact Maxtor and explain the problem. They might have a diagnostic tool you can try also.


Hope this helps.