Whenever I start my computer (from hibernation or a restart) my BIOS scans for the HDs and can't find them. It says something like "No hard drives attached to FasTrack controller. BIOS is not installed." It then proceeds to boot windows perfectally normally. I can also access my bios normally, too. I used to get "serious errors" but I haven't lately. Anyone know what these problems mean or how to fix them? OldTimer said it might be a sign of an upcoming hardware failure.

As far as I know, the problem started after my mom shut down my computer, but she just hit the power button (which hibernates) like I always do.

OS: Win XP Pro
Mobo: ASUS K8V Deluxe (never flashed BIOS)
HDDs: Western digitals, 160GB and 10GB, both 7200 RPM, 160 is 1 year old, 10 is 6 years old, don't know model numbers.

have you tried loading the bios default settings?

No. How would I do that?

Get a new battery for the Motherboard. They only cost about 5 bucks and can cause this problem.

When you boot, go into the bios and see if your hard drives are being detected. If not, look for something like Auto-detect hard drives on the main screen.

Yup. When I hit Del to enter the BIOS, it shows the POST or whatever those checks are and the drives show up. When I finally get to the bios, it shows 2 HDDs and a CD drive on the main screen. I fiddled around with some of my settings and only succeeded in getting windows to have to revert to the last setting that worked. I know I told it to disable the onboard Promise controller or something, and told it not to do RAID for something, but it would then still not detect the bios.

I noticed something else. I have been getting 2 seperate errors. 1 from VIA raid tool (I don't use RAID) and one from the Promise FastTrack controller. Both cannot find the drives and the Promise one cannot find the bios. The Via error also lets me hit Tab and go to a raid configuration screen in which I can do nothing because it can't see the drives. I guess I should be able to set up raid there or something.

I think I'll be running errands tomorrow, so I'll look for a new battery and try that.

Why did you do that? Thats where your error is coming from. That is the controller that lets your hard drives communicate with the motherboard.

What does Everest say about your hard drives? It will tell you if one or both are failing. You can also run Western Digital Data Lifeguard Tools. Use either Data Lifeguard Diagnostic for DOS (Floppy) or Data Lifeguard Diagnostic for DOS (CD). The instructions are there when you click for the download.

Everest sees bith drives correctly, and they are both error-free (in the SMART section).

Also, about disabling the Promise thing, the errors showed up before I messed with anything. I enabled it after I tried to load windows unsuccessfully.

I FINALLY got around to running the test programs, and they showed both drives as having no errors (I ran quick and full scans). I still get the error, but I probably won't bother with it for a while cuz its not causing problems.

Thanks,
Lanscader