Machine spontaneously changes boot device order

[philrock]

I'm running Win XP Home on my office computer with a Pentium 4 processor and Intel D945PSN motherboard.

I have two hard drives, a SATA and an IDE. I set up the CMOS to boot from the SATA drive. It worked fine that way for quite a while. Then one day it decided to boot from the IDE drive. I went into the CMOS and the SATA drive was not even listed. After a few more attempts, the SATA drive finally appeared in the boot list, and I was able to set it as the first boot device again.

Since then the system has intermittently (about half the time - way too often to live with) changed the boot device order on its own.

Sometimes when I go into the CMOS, only the IDE drive is listed.

Sometimes only the SATA drive is listed.

Sometimes both drives are listed.

Usually, after I set the SATA as the primary boot device, the system will boot from it on the very next startup. After that, it's a crap shoot.

Earlier this afternoon, after it had booted from the IDE drive, I restarted, went into the CMOS, and only the SATA drive was in the boot list. Go figure.

No matter which drive it boots from, the both drives are aways visible in Windows Explorer, and their contents appear to be what they should be.

Any ideas what might be the problem here?

Is there a battery on the motherboard that powers the CMOS RAM when the machine is turned off? Is so, is it possible the battery is weak?

 

[Turkbear]

Hi,
yes there is a battery ( if I remember correctly) and its failure or low output could cause any number of odd things..Does your system clock keep correct time?





To Paraphrase:"The Help you get is proportional to the Help you give.."

 

[chrislg987]

How many SATA connections are there on your motherboard? If you have 2, have you tried using the other SATA0 or SATA1 connection instead of the existing connection. It might be the cable or port on the motherboard.

 

[chrislg987]

Or your Bios may need to be updated to the lastest version.

 

[philrock]

Thank you for your responses. System clock has always kept good time.

This morning I took out the battery and checked its voltage; 3.2 volts. New battery measures 3.3 volts. 3.2 volts should be fine, but I put in the new battery anyway. When I started up, I got several (reasonable) warnings relating to the battery change. I let the system boot without intervention, just to see what would happen. It booted from the SATA drive. The system time and date were off, as expected. When I went in to change them, the keyboard key mapping was off in a very strange way. Somehow, I finally managed to correct the time and date.

I restarted and went into the CMOS, hoping to find something about key mapping, but did not. I checked the boot device order, and it said IDE 1st, SATA 2nd, even though it had just booted from SATA. I reset SATA to 1st, saved changes and exited CMOS. The system booted from SATA. The key mapping when setting the clock and calendar was still bizarre, but o.k. in regular apps.

I have 4 SATA connectors on the motherboard, number 0 thru 3. I'm currently on SATA 1.

So far, since changing the battery, the computer has booted the way I want 3 times, but shown odd behavior with regard to holding CMOS settings.

As long as it keeps booting from SATA, and is otherwise still usable, I guess I'll leave it alone. If I get any more IDE boots, I'll try a different SATA port on the motherboard.

 

[philrock]

Since replacing the 3.2 volt battery with a 3.3 volt one, I've had maybe 15 good boots and no bad ones. Amazing what a difference a tenth of a volt can make.

Thanks again for all your help.