bios forgets the master drive is there?

  • Thread starter Thread starter mark
  • Start date Start date
M

mark

For the past few months I've had this problem, but since I leave the PC on
most of the time I never bothered to try to find out what would cause this:

every time I boot the PC up, it fails to detect the master hard drive
containing WinXP Home on it. The PC just hangs as it can't find an OS. The
only way to get it to boot up is to go into the BIOS and hit the autodetect
and it right away detects the master drive. I can then save the settings and
it boots up just fine. But if I restart the PC, it fails to recognize it
again.

My thoughts are:

1. battery going bad on the motherboard? I don't even know if there is a
battery on my motherboard but I assume there is one.

2. The hard drive is failing. But if that's the case, wouldn't it have gone
by now?

Any ideas?
 
mark said:
For the past few months I've had this problem, but since I leave the PC on
most of the time I never bothered to try to find out what would cause this:

every time I boot the PC up, it fails to detect the master hard drive
containing WinXP Home on it. The PC just hangs as it can't find an OS. The
only way to get it to boot up is to go into the BIOS and hit the autodetect
and it right away detects the master drive. I can then save the settings and
it boots up just fine. But if I restart the PC, it fails to recognize it
again.
Click to expand...

Fails to 'detect' it or there aren't any settings for it?

I mean, does the machine 'normally' redetect the drives on bootup of, as
you imply, depend on the settings arrived at during the BIOS set up?

If it's the later then your battery is probably low. TIME should be wrong
too, in that case, which you could use to verify the problem.

If it's supposed to be redetecting on each boot then look for a hard drive
start up (spin up) timer setting on the BIOS and give it a bit more delay.
 
mark said:
For the past few months I've had this problem, but since I leave the PC on
most of the time I never bothered to try to find out what would cause this:

every time I boot the PC up, it fails to detect the master hard drive
containing WinXP Home on it. The PC just hangs as it can't find an OS. The
only way to get it to boot up is to go into the BIOS and hit the autodetect
and it right away detects the master drive. I can then save the settings and
it boots up just fine. But if I restart the PC, it fails to recognize it
again.

My thoughts are:

1. battery going bad on the motherboard? I don't even know if there is a
battery on my motherboard but I assume there is one.

2. The hard drive is failing. But if that's the case, wouldn't it have gone
by now?

Any ideas?
Click to expand...

As David said, if your RTC is OK, it is likely that your HD is not
getting up to speed fast enough. Additional time to detect the HD might
solve the problem, but it could also be an indication of impending HD
failure. I would copy my HD data if it were mine.
 
For the past few months I've had this problem, but since I leave the PC on
most of the time I never bothered to try to find out what would cause this:

every time I boot the PC up, it fails to detect the master hard drive
containing WinXP Home on it. The PC just hangs as it can't find an OS. The
only way to get it to boot up is to go into the BIOS and hit the autodetect
and it right away detects the master drive. I can then save the settings and
it boots up just fine. But if I restart the PC, it fails to recognize it
again.

My thoughts are:

1. battery going bad on the motherboard? I don't even know if there is a
battery on my motherboard but I assume there is one.
Click to expand...

The battery is the first thing I would check, especially if the internal
clock is running slow.

You do have one. In older PCs, its a block stuck to something with
mounting tape and with a wire to the mb. Newer ones use a coin shaped
battery ranging from approximately quarter sized to approximately silver
dollar sized. Some are soldered in, most are in a clip in holder. Most
of the clips have the "coin" laying on the board, a few mount it
vertically.

Assuming you can locate it and its not soldered in, power up, detect the
HD, and carefully remove the battery. Leaving the PC on, go to your local
computer store, show it to them, and ask for another. Return home and
insert the new battery. WATCH POLARITY!!!!! Shut down, power off, wait
a while and power up.
2. The hard drive is failing. But if that's the case, wouldn't it have gone
by now?
Click to expand...

Possible, especially if the battery is not the problem. The memory the
bios uses could also be failing.
 
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