On 14/04/11 17:37, Mark Rogers wrote:
However, I got all sorts of disk errors, so (assuming the disk to be faulty) I got another (different brand) 250GB SATA drive and started again - same results. I'm also seeing issues at the POST stage (eg sometimes the BIOS doesn't report a disk being present, sometimes there's no drive to boot from, etc).
I have a couple of thoughts. I'm sure on occasions, I've had "disk errors" when in fact, the problem was that the CMOS battery was flat. The machine would detect the disk parameters sometimes, but not reliably remember it.
The other thought: I have a laptop booting off an external USB disk. My machine has a quick boot option, which skips many standard BIOS checks, then when the BIOS is ready to boot, the disk is not yet ready. The only way I can get that machine to boot reliably is to turn off quick boot, and do a normal old-fashioned slow boot.
Hope you get it sorted.