Disk boot failure?!? Cannot find any IDE!!

[Mtlca401]

My computer froze the other day so I restarted it and received this message. I know what this message means, but the thing is that I don't know if it is the harddrive or the motherboard that is going bad. When the pc boots sometimes it finds the harddrive and sometimes it doesn't. But the times when it cannot find the harddrive it doesn't find any IDE component. I have changed the IDE cables. That worked for a day, and then started acting up again.

I know that all four IDE components aren't going bad all at the sametime, so could it have something to do with the IDE connectors on the motherboard?

[Paul H]

You say you checked the IDE cables, but did you check the POWER cable to your Hard Drive? I had that happen recently. A real heart stopper! On investigation I found the +5 connector was sprung out of shape, wiggling the cable would fix it temporally. Also I've seen some really crappy crimps on some cheaper power supply cables.

[Mtlca401]

I don't know if would be bad connectors on the power supply, but I'll check it out. I have been doing the check disk on each of the harddrives and the pc hasn't locked up on me yet.

Does any one know why the bios would be having trouble reading four different IDE Components though?

I have also received,from within windows, the message "write delay failed" or something like that and the pc just kind of sits there for a while, but that was before the check disk. I have not received any errors on the check disk either.

[queequeg99]

There are a number of possibilities for a sudden failure like this. Assuming your software configuration didn't change (viruses, malware, new drivers?), you might focus on hardware related causes. If you have a relatively older motherboard, there are a number of things that can start to fail on the motherboard over time, including capacitors that start to leak or otherwise go bad because of heat issues (often difficult to pinpoint) and CMOS batteries that start to act up (just a couple of dollars to replace). For older computers, the power supply is another possibility as these things do lose their ability to efficiently provide peak power over time. If you've got a lot of powered devices (sounds like you have 4 IDE devices), this is a definite possibility to consider. Unless you're running an SLI rig, a pretty good power supply is relatively cheap ($50-60) and if it turns out to be something else (e.g. a problem with the motherboard), you can always use the new power supply in what will likely be a newly built computer (if you're into that sort of project).