No HD recognition

[trouble1]

Every once in a while my hard drive is not recognized at boot time and I am asked to insert a CD. It only happens about once every 50 times and a cold reboot will succeed.

I am concerned about the intermittent nature of the problem. So far it isn't increasing in frequency but this can't be a good sign. It is a Maxtor drive 7200 rev, P3 CPU, original system about 18 months old. I am thinking electrical problem, bios or boot record.

Anyone heard of such a thing?

 

[rwradvent]

I have got the same problem with a western digital 120 GB drive. I havent tried a cold boot yet.

 

[trouble1]

How old is your drive? I will contact the drive maker if no one has any clues on this. Thought I might get lucky and someone who is in the business had run across this before. It would seem to warn of impending disk failure but I've had intermittent failure with the neutral safety switch in my car for 5 years and it always starts with additional attempts.

 

[edfair]

How about trying a reset switch 10 or so seconds after power up and see if it doesn't find it OK. If so , you can try shortening the duration before the reset to find a reasonable time for resetting the machine.
I've seen several instances of the BIOS reaching hard drive ID before the drive is ready and the resolution is to delay the HD test.
It has also been reported by others. Ed Fair
Any advice I give is my best judgement based on my interpretation of the facts you supply. Help increase my knowledge by providing some feedback, good or bad, on any advice I have given.

 

[trouble1]

Sounds reasonable and saves time, certainly better than premature drive failure. Could be days or weeks before it happens again but I will post if that works. I don't always watch the boot process but I have heard a somewhat sickening sound when the drive is missed. That's why I thought it might be an electro-mechanical problem.

Thanks for the suggestion.

 

[YLFever]

Trouble1, sounds like you probably have diagnosed the problem
already. Have you done a thorough scandisk on the drive lately. If you haven't (and I'm not assuming you haven't)you could have cross-links, bad sectors and other buildup that could prevent the drive from being recognized. Just a thought. Good luck!

 

[trouble1]

Thanks for the suggestion. Yes, I have run the thorough disk scan. I thought maybe the location of boot information was on an imperfect spot that had developed or was not locked out at low level format time. I am not sure, but is it not the case that the boot record cannot be moved while all else can be relocated?