The fix was to go into the BIOS and disable the SATA ports that are not being used. The question is, why did it start doing this? It has been working fine for a year. Now all of a sudden, the BIOS needs to be changed? Making a change to the BIOS seems like a band-aid. What was the root cause?
How old is the computer? The CMOS battery may be low or dead. The CMOS battery holds the adjustable settings in the BIOS. The battery only is needed when the power to the computer is interrupted. BTW, what is Windows 2012?
When you were in the BIOS did you have to reset the time in there? Incorrect time there indicates the battery is not holding the settings.
When a Computer Can't Find the Hard Drive but Says to Press F1 to Continue
http://smallbusiness.chron.com/comp...
HI OtheHill, The battery seems to be fine. The server is less than a year old. I ran full diags and couldn't find anything. I have never been a Dell server fan because of issues like this.
message edited by Express
HI Johnw, I have read this but was no help. I put a different hard drive in and had the same results. It sees the hard drive as the first drive/only drive in the list. It boots fine now that I have disabled the other ports.
The server is plugged into a UPS. I have seen BIOS firmware get messed up when there are variations in power or spikes, but I have to admit, its been a long time since I have seen that. I guess I should break down and call Dell and ask them.