System restarts... then doesnt recognise HDD untill power off 4 3 secs

[Boidy]

Hiya!!

When my computer processes a large amount of data - usually when installing or booting large programs or copying large files - the computer freezes for about 10 seconds then restarts. upon restart the HDD is not recognised (tested in BOIS) hense the error message "system halted" appears

Then when I turn the power to the compuetr off and wait 3 seconds and turn it back on it recognises the HDD and boots normally - however the problem still occors.

Also just before booting (imediatly after the grafics card loading screen) a list of my hardware pops up prossesor/harddrive/keyboard/mouse/usb/ram/ and a couple others.. and it says press F1 to resume at the bottom. which once pressed the comp. boots normally

what does this mean?

I'm running on XP Pro, an 80 GB maxtor HDD, 512MB RAM, 2G prossesor, Gforce 4 grafix card. CDrom,dvdrom and floppy drive.

please help, this computer has given me nothing but grief for about 2 months.

thanks,
boid

 

[Boidy]

by the way.. and I dont know if this means anything or if this is helpful.. but after closer inspection of the "press F1 to resume" screen, my HDD says:
"fixed disk 0 maxtor ......"
y is it fixed disk "0".. does that mean anything out of the ordinary

any help would be gladly recieved

boid

p.s. all files are backed up incase repartioning or formating is required.

 

[etarhan]

Looks like you have a main board problem. It may also be due to overclocking and/or incorrect jumpering. Bad memory can also cause these problems, but I'd rate it second.

If you're hardware oriented, check all the jumpers, clean the insides, etc. If you're under warranty, get it to the service immediately. If you're not, get it to a dependable service for a thorough check.

Good luck,
Engin

 

[Grenage]

The first thing I would personally check would be the Power Supply, if you have a spare one or are able to borrow one.

 

[Boidy]

Jumpers on the MB (which I have no idea about) or the master/slave etc jumpers on the HDD? - etarhan

Also its definately not the power supply i checked that already.

cheers
Boid

 

[PeterGriff]

The "press F1 to continue booting" usually indicates some error condition during the BIOS checking (normally the error is listed immediately prior to this message) so it might be worth checking the BIOS settings. Could be overclocking, bad RAM or HDD settings ...
Might be worth checking for a m/board BIOS update also.
Another long-shot - could this be due to overheating when you are asking it to work hard - CPU fan or ventilation generally??

Peter G

 

[Boidy]

BAD RAM? I thought it might be that but I have no way of testing (or none i can think of - help)
there is no message before that screen and I've tried everything i can think of in the BIOS settings
I dont think its vent. probs. I've left the sidecover off for a while now and all the fans are running.

I formatted and repartitioned my harddrive and it seems to be workin - no random restarts however the "press F1" screen still appears.
Looks like I might have to live with it. although when I put in another hardrive that screen doesnt appear.. that leads me to believe its not reading the HDD correctly (bios i mean) but i cant see any problems and it worked for a hell of a long time before this(2 years)

thaks to every1 so far for all the help, but any more suggestions would be greatly appreciated

cheers
Boid

 

[bcastner]

Heat related failure of the drive controller board (on the drive itself) is my bet.

 

[Boidy]

why might that happen? and how do I fix it

cheers

 

[LME]

Hi

I had a similar problem check out this site for info on power supply.

http://firingsquad.gamers.com/guides/power_supply/