Upon a cold boot the system performs the POST and after verifying DMI pool data and checking the boot devices (CD and DVD) the system refuses to boot, instead giving me the message DISK BOOT FAILURE or ERROR LOADING OS. After rebooting one or more times the system will then boot.

Initially the system will show me information regarding the Nvidia boot loader and the error message DISK BOOT FAILURE and then after rebooting I will receive the message ERROR LOADING OS but no info about the boot loader. When this problem first surfaced I would only see the ERROR LOADING OS message and then after rebooting the system would load properly, so the problem is progressively getting worse. Requiring more time to start and more reboots.

The system worked fine with the same configuration for months then all of a sudden this started happening.

My system specs are as follows:

OS: Windows XP SP2
MOTHERBOARD: Soltek SL-75FRN2-L
MEMORY: 512MB Kingston HyperX DDR PC2700
CPU: AMD Athlon 2500+
OS Drive: Seagate ST380011A (80GB)
Other Drive: Maxtor 6L200R0 (200GB)
DVD-Drive: Lite-On DVDRW SOHW-1633S
CD-Drive: Lite-On LTR-52246S
Power Supply: Antec TruePower 380W
Environment: Coastal climate, fairly humid, fairly cool.

I have already run memtest86, seatools and maxblast and the tests all came back negative so no problems there. I do not believe the problem is with my OS as the problem occurs even if I stick in a bootable CD. I have also tried disabling QuickPOST to no avail. My only ideas are that it is a Motherboard or cable problem but I am not willing to replace my Motherboard just on a hunch. Does anyone have any ideas?

The problem is probably a combination of the motherboard and the boot device. Disabling QuickPOST usually fixes a slow boot device. It appears to be the motherboard. Test your boot devices in another computer with a different motherboard.

Some fast computers boot so fast they don't find the hard drive the first time when you boot from cold. In addition to some kind of Quick post or similar setting, which is mostly to do with how throughly your board is checked while booting especially the ram, there is usually a setting in the bios that will delay the beginning of the boot a bit, or delay accessing the drives a bit - it is often Disabled by default - if you set that to, say, 5 seconds, you may then have no problems.

Thanks for all the help, but it appears I was a little premature on my motherboard conclusion. The problem boiled down to not having my cables connected one hundred percent. Don't ask me why it caused the problem it did but the problem is no more after making sure they were all tightened as well as they could be.

Ok. Thanks for letting us know.
Too many who make the original posts here don't even bother to respond after a short while, especially to admit they were hasty.