BIOS is bad, then BIOS is good w/ no changes 1

[MagicFrisbee]

I am helping a neighbor with their computer. Here are the specs I jotted down:

HP Pavilion 7955
Pentium 4 1.5 GHz
40 GB Fujitsu MPG3409A Hard Drive
256 MB RAM
Award Medallion BIOS 6.0 BIOS, Revision 3.05 08/28/2001

When their computer starts up, I get the following error message:
DISK BOOT FAILURE, INSERT SYSTEM DISK AND PRESS ENTER

But whenever I start the computer and press F1 to go into setup, all I have to do is hit F10 (to Exit and Save changes), and the computer boots up into Windows XP just fine. Note that I don't have to make any changes to the BIOS settings. I just have to go into the settings with F1 and exit with F10 for the computer to start up. If I skip going into the BIOS, I get the capitalized error above.

Now, I've also tried enabling "QuickTime Diagnostic Screen" so that I can see the diagnostics that normally happen under the blue HP screen hood. If I don't go into the BIOS, I'll see the line

Detecting Primary Master......................None
...

But if I go into the BIOS and hit F10 to save and exit, I'll see this

Detecting Primary Master.....FUJITSU MPG3409A

and then goes properly into Windows XP.

What to do? I've messed with BIOS settings for Primary Master (such as Auto, User Type HDD, etc.) and none of them work, even if I save and exit with F10.

GIS Programmer
City of Orem, UT

http://gis.orem.org

 

[wolluf]

1. Check the mobo battery - bios may be losing its settings.
2. Run fujitsu's drive diagnostic - this sort of behaviour can be indicative of a failing drive.
3. Try another drive in machine if possible - just to see if it gets detected or not without going into bios. If same behaviour I'd suspect mobo is dying.

 

[vacunita]

I would suspect your hard drive is taking a little longer to spin up than the BIOS can wait to detect it. When you go into the BIOS you give it that extra few milliseconds to finish spinning up.

I would agree with wolluf in that it might be a sign of a failing drive. Try Fujitsu for diagnostics tools. And try another drive in there.



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Ignorance is not necessarily Bliss, case in point:
Unknown has caused an Unknown Error on Unknown and must be shutdown to prevent damage to Unknown.

 

[MagicFrisbee]

Wolluf,

Sorry, but what is a mobo battery? Any links for me?

Both,

Where do I find Fujitsu diagnostic tools? On the C: drive? On an A: drive? On the web?

GIS Programmer
City of Orem, UT

http://gis.orem.org

 

[wolluf]

Mobo battery is a 'watch' (little circular) battery on the motherboard. It enables the bios to be able to save its settings when powered off - so if the battery is getting flat, settings tend to get lost between boot-ups. So, when this happens, need to replace battery.

Fujitsu diagnostic tools - on the web, eg:-

http://www.fujitsu.com/us/services/computing/storage/hdd/support/utilities.html

 

[vacunita]

Yeah, what wolluf said.

----------------------------------
Ignorance is not necessarily Bliss, case in point:
Unknown has caused an Unknown Error on Unknown and must be shutdown to prevent damage to Unknown.