Hey BC,

I have been having a weird issue with my PC lately, and i was hoping that the collective computer knowledge of BC could give me an answer. So, my computer has been having a random boot error lately.

Every few times i start up my computer, it goes through the basics, but fails to detect my hard drive, and then gives an error similar to, "boot device not found," i can't remember exactly what it is. Originally i was thinking that my master hard drive might be corrupt. I am running a master 500gb hard drive, and i have 120gb hard drive slaved to it. The weird thing is that when i unplug my slave, my master by itself boots fine, so that couldn't be it.

Then i was thinking maybe something was wrong with my jumper configuration, maybe one came loose or something. But i rechecked my jumpers and everything was set correctly according to the keys on the backs of the hard drives. When i plugged my slave back in, everything worked normally.

It continues however, that every few times i boot my computer, i have to unplug my slave, boot to windows, shut down, plug my slave back in, and then reboot in order for it to work properly. Sometimes it is the very next time i start my computer, sometimes it lasts for 4 or 5 restarts, but the average is about every 3 times i start it. This leads me to conclude that something is wrong with the boot device on my Mother Board, but i can't be sure.

So, i was hoping that someone here on BC could help me out, or that maybe someone has seen something like this before. I am especially interested in solutions that don't force me to replace my motherboard, as funds are a little tight right now, and by tight, i mean i can hardly afford the gas money to drive to work, let alone by new computer parts.

Thanks,

Garric

Well...I would take a look at the jumpers again.

Two devices on the same cable...settings can be either Master for 1 and Slave for 2...or both must be C/S (cable select). Drives come from factories with the C/S setting enabled, not Master/Slave.

And make sure that you have both hard drives on the same cable, with only the CD/DVD on the other.

Also...take a look in the BIOS and ensure that the drives are detected there properly.

If both drives are jumpered properly...it could be the cable itself or bent pins on one drive...etc.

Exact error messages are helpful, when posted.

Louis

well, my computer eventually did an automated fix. Apparantly it detected inaccuracies in one of my drives and went through and repaired it, so everything is working fine now. I was fairly sure my jumnpers were correct because i didn't change it from when they were working. Thanks for the advice though.

Glad that you solved it, happy computing .

But...if you don't already backup your system routinely, I suggest that you start now.

Things which go wrong once...can probably do so again...and it's nice to be prepared for such.

In my limited experience, boot problems which surface once will always come back unless properly diagnosed and corrected.

Louis

I hate when issues arise like that and you do not have a backup handy. It is very scary.