I have a really odd problem with my computer. When the computer boots up, the computer seems to take an age to identify the primary master which is how the drive is set. If the devices are not identified straight away, then I will get an invalid system disk error, but it the drive is identified straight away, then the computer will boot fine. Generally, when the computer boots properly, i can hear the disk spinning up, slighlty before the drive is identified. The drive is on IDE channel 1 on its own, atached with the correct ATA 100 cable. The drive is a Western Digital 40g 7200 model. I've checked all the connections inside and all the cables seem to be fitted properly, so I dont know what else to try. I've tried surface scans on the drive, and there are not bad sectors or problems. This is a fresh Win XP installation. If it helps the PC is: 1.4 Athlon GF3 graphics card Epox motherboard Western Digital 40g HD Soundblaster Value 400W Power supply USB2 hub 1 DVD Rom 1 CD Writer I exhaust blower fan

It could be a hard drive controller problem. If you haven't found any bad sectors, then I would say that's what it is. Do you have access to another PC (friend, family, etc.) that you could hook the drive up to? That would prove it one way or another. If it is a bad controller, you could get a hard drive controller card from Dalco Electronics or another PC parts vendor. Good luck!

Could be the cable, try switching it with the one attached to your CD/DVD drives.

This type of delay usually occurs if BIOS has been incorrectly set. Do an IDE auto detectection and then check your Basic setup to ensure that the HDD is correctly identified. If it keeps 'loosing' this setting, check and replace the CMOS battery.