BIOS HDD DETECT - Too Quick 4 HDD

[GMunro1]

ISSUE:
Upon cold boot I have to wait a few secs and then perform a warm boot (Ctl-Alt-Del) as the BIOS fails to pick up my Primary Harddrive.

SPECULATIONS/TESTING:
This seems due to the time it takes for the harddrive to spin up is to long as the BIOS has already searched for it and was unable to find it. A warm boot alows the BIOS to detect it as the drive has already spun up. I have tried manually adding the drive into the BIOS but this doesn't fix the problem. I have gone through the BIOS to see if I can 'stall' the boot sequence (i.e. with a memory check or Title page) but can't find anything.

SPECIFICATIONS
ASUS (AMD) A7V333 Motherboard
Seagate Barrucaudda 80GB Harddrive

Any help appreciated as I'm sick of having to boot my PC twice.

 

[Snickle]

One way I've done it is to disable the Quick Boot in the BIOS. May be called Quick Power On Self Test. It just counts the memory, giving the drives time to spin up on fast computers and really doesn't slow down the boot process very much.

 

[ceh4702]

There are some quickboot options in the BIOS. Try making it verify the floppy and also do a full count of the memory instead of a qick boot without verifying the memory. Look for some other options having to do with rebooting after a power failure, etc. This is usually enough to give you a second or two. If you do not like my post feel free to point out your opinion or my errors.

 

[GMunro1]

Thanks to those that replied

ADDITIONAL:To date

- I've set the Floppy Seek at Boot - Doesn't buy much time. Setting BIOS to AUTO DETECT HDD doesn't buy enough time (as the BIOS seeks for the HDD)

- Plus I've disabled Quick Boot so it now does the memory check. This works ...only draw back is that I have 512MB Ram and seriously..I went and made a coffee, came back and it was still going.

Pity there they don't put in a user specified WAIT state on powerup. The ASUS BIOS is quite good and I'd recommend ASUS.

 

[Snickle]

The wait with large amounts of memory is a downside to not using Quick Boot. Years ago when the memory quality wasn't as good, you had to do the memory count.

 

[Cindy1]

Does that mean that the hard drive is going or that it's just a slow hard drive? What kind is it?
Cindy

 

[GMunro1]

No.

All harddrives have a 'spin-up speed' same as CD-ROMs (though it's more important in CD ROMs)
You'll notice that when you set your 'Suspend options' there is generally a setting for MONITOR and HARDDRIVES. So after the HDD are suspended (PC idle for some time)and you start to use the PC you'll notice it takes a while for any activity. This is because the HDD has to 'spin-up' (startup/get the plattens rotating etc).
So my problem is more than likely to do with the charateristics of the HDD itself and trying to use BIOS features to allow the drive adequate time to initialise.