Having some strange problems... 1. If I boot my pc after it has been idle for some time (e.g a couple of hours), the hard drive is detected fine and it boots into Windows ME. However, after approx 20 mins the hard disk seems to freeze (sounds like it's spinning down, then up again) and I get an "unable to write to disk" blue screen. Sometimes the disk powers back up and then a few mins later does the same. Usually it dies completely this time. 2. On rebooting the PC the hard drive cannot then be detected and shows "None" against the IDE device on the boot up screen. It then goes into a Verifying DMI pool Data error. I've reloaded the BIOS fail-safe defaults. Made sure drive detection is set to Auto, checked the IDE cables, turned off all power management, tried installing the IDE drivers that come with Windows, run Norton Disk Doctor (thorough test..no problems found). The motherboard is an EPOX 8KTA+ with Via 4in1 drivers (I'm running the latest drivers). PLEASE SOMEBODY HELP!!!!!!!

Sounds like a physically faulty hard drive motor to me.

There is a power management setting to sleep the hard drive. Make sure all that stuff it turned off including standby and hibranation.

Yes, it's all turned off. Although I'm beginning to think more and more that this may be a hard drive fault, is there anything else I should check? Also, I've run the Fujitsu diagnostic utilities available from their web site and this shows no problems. I've also downloaded and installed Active SMART to monitor the drive - it crashed again yesterday but Active Smart didn't pick up any warning signs. The problem is definitely one that appears after the hard drive has been run for some time, and goes away for a period of time if you turn the pc off. Is this still pointing towards it being a physical fault on the hard drive or does anyone have any other suggestions? All ideas welcome!!

Any joy with your Hard disk? IF not, what make is it? We have purchased about 140 20Gb Fujitsu MPG3204AT drives and they are dropping like flies. Same problem on each they work fine then suddenly stop working - they won't then detect on boot up. Upon leaving them for a while they are then redetected but usually with errors. It is a known fault with this model (10Gb also has problem). Swap the drive if you can.