Hi guys sorry if I am posting on a redundant topic but if I have to take my machine in and fork out the money I want to exhaust all of my resources beforehand. So I was playing a game (Battlefield 2) and shutdown as normal. The next day I fire up my computer to watch a movie and I get a few random reboots in a row. I thought this was odd and run virus/spy ware in safe mode and reboot. Now I get into windows and system freezes, hard lock only power off/will reboot. I go through this a time or four and get into safe mode again and can't find any problems. So I reboot again and check bios and switch to boot via CD so I can access repair tools or just reinstall windows all together. I get to the CD interface but when I try and reinstall I get "There is no hard drive on you computer". So my first inclination is my MBR is corrupt or HD is completely broken. I reboot again and this time no screen at startup, no flicker, nothing. I reboot a few more times and screen activates, then system hangs at windows loading. Reboot again and no screen. I remove the hard drive and reboot until I get a screen and system hangs at bios tools. So I figure it's not the hard drive and not the RAM ( I replaced working stock ram and still had the same problem. The system fires up on power on HD spins CD spins and initializes I get the LED indicator that it's reading/attempting to read the HD. I am thinking that it's down to the mobo or CPU and hoping against hope that it's the CPU as it's easier to replace than having to re-warranty through Alienware's horrid customer service and send my system off. Sorry for the lengthy post, any suggestions and or insight is much appreciated. Thanks.

Do you have a Harddrive larger than 127GB? If so, look here: http://www.48bitlba.com/index.htm

This is why it is still nice to have a bootable floppy drive or a bootable CD. Trying to boot either one may tell you if it is the hard drive or not. Search Engines Are Your Friends ☺ Morpheus: There is a difference between knowing the path and walking the path. "The Matrix"

I don't, it's only 60GB but I will check that link, thanks.

I have the bootable CD that came with my computer. With or without the hard drive in it still locks up at random times even when I boot with CD.

Try reseating the motherboard power connector. With power off and the cord disconnected, of course. Do yourself a favor BACKUP!

Thanks for the suggestion ham30 unfortunatly it didn't fix the problem. Does anyone think that it could be related to the vido card or VBIOS? I am running an NVIDIA 6800 Ultra moble.