Won't recognize the hard drive when the system reboots

[Marc]

I just put together a system that works great except when I go to reboot. It boots up but won't recognize the hard drive. I have to phsycally turn off the power and then all is well again. Also when doing hardware modifications and the system wants to restart itself the same problem. I have to turn off the power and then turn it back on. Is this a bios setting problem or is this a hardware problem? Anyone know the answer?

[darrell]

If you are using an Abit BH6, it could be a bad board. I just had to send one back for the same problem. Every time I rebooted, I would have to mess with the IDE cable to get it to detect my hard drive. It would tell me I didn't have a hard drive hooked up till I did that.

[darrell]

If you are using an Abit BH6, it could be a bad board. I just had to send one back for the same problem. Every time I rebooted, I would have to mess with the IDE cable to get it to detect my hard drive. It would tell me I didn't have a hard drive hooked up till I did that.

[Bud]

Try a different IDE cable this board for some reason sometimes has a dislike of some IDE ribbons and make sure it is seated well on both ends.
Good Luck
Bud

[Marc]

Thanks I will give it a try and post the results

[Marc]

Ok I changed the ide cable with the same results. This is a VX board with a 200 Mhz cyrix chip, running Win 98. I believe the board is good because it did not have this problem before. Assuming the board is good and the cables are good what else could it be?

[CompGuy]

I don't know if you have one around... but try an add-on controller card... that will kind of give you an idication if the board is bad or not....

[David]

Are you saying it will boot-up from c, but afterwards, if you click on My Computer, the C drive is not there?

[Marc]

David, what I am saying is that when you first light up the machine all is well. Then if you need to restart it won't find the hard drive and the message is non-system disk error and it is stuck there until you turn it off and push the power button and start over, then all is well.

[Bud]

Do you have a floppy in the A drive?
Bud

[Marc]

Bud, No floppy in the A drive

[Susan]

Just a hunch - have you tested your memory?
On a soft boot, I'm think alot of the HD info is read from memory. If you have Norton Utilities or Nut's & Bolts, try running a Ram test.
Susan