Hi I wonder if somebody might be able to help me? I've got the following system at the moment: AMD Athlon 2.0 Ghz Processor 512 MB RAM Asrock K7VT2 Motherboard NVIDIA 32MB TNT2 RIVA Graphics Card 300W Power Supply 40GB Maxtor Hard Drive CD-ROM and CD-Writer Basic***y the problem I've got is that when I switch my machine on, it goes through the first couple of screens then comes to the part about detecting hard drive which it usu***y says something like 'found' I think then says there is an error reading Drive C should I abort, retry or fail, if I press any of those it comes up with the same message over and over again. I'll reset it and then it will say that there is a missing file, once came up with HIMEM.sys missing and will start to run scandisk. Once I reboot a couple of times it starts to come on but I think the problem is now getting quite serious as when it went through scandisk the other day it started coming up with bad clusters on my hard drive. I've had this problem for about 3 years and at first starting replacing most of the hardware to my current configuration. I've reinst***ed Win98 loads of times, replaced the hard drive, RAM, Processor, Motherboard, I've even changed my IDE cables and its still coming up with that error. The only thing I have not replaced is the power supply and I'm seriously considering whether this may be the problem. I don't want to spend any more money and replace this if this is not the problem. If anybody knows what the problem might be or has any suggestions please tell me! I Re***y need to know what the problem is or could be! Thank You

It ~could~ be the power supply. You'd need a digital volt meter to check the power connectors going to your devices. If the supply is out of tolerance the devices can act funny. Also you could check the connectors themselves. ie; ensure that none of the "pins" inside are sliding back when you connect it to a device. Loose female "pins" inside the connector can give the same problems if they're not "grabbing" the male pins on the devices tightly enough. I'd also (if you haven't already) download POWERMAX from the Maxtor site to run a check on your drive, "just in case".

Thank you for your advice. I'll have a good look at it tommorow and check connectors, run Powermax etc. Thank you Michelle

I doubt it's the power supply. But it'd be a good idea to check the voltages as Dan recommends. You can check the voltage at an unconnected power plug since they're all at the same voltage. Be careful not to short the voltmeter leads when testing as you may blow the fuse in the power supply. But it sounds like your drive may be showing its age. You've got a pretty fast machine. It could be the drive isn't spinning up fast enough. Check in your cmos to see if you have 'hard drive pre delay' (or something similar). If so, setting that to 6 seconds or so will give the drive a little more time to spin up and be recognized by the bios.