Cannot detect HD master (1 Viewer)

[stargaze]

I have a pretty odd problem: sometimes my comp freezes randomly.. When I restart, the usual screen where they check your ram etc loads up. Then where it normally checks the drives etc.. It stops at the hd.. Says something like: Detecting HD master ... [Press F4] to cancel

If I cancel, I need to boot with xp cd, but it wont go into windows.

This problem is always fixed by turning off the electrical switch to my comp and starting up the comp again.. Seems pretty odd..

Any ideas? Btw, i'm running winXP pro...

 

[sunny]

It does sound like your hard disk is playing up. Have you noticed any strange noises coming from the drive? Can you run a scandisk on it when it works? Does the HD have any fans attached to it?

 

[Merforga]

It happened to me before...lasted a fair while. In the end i just reformatted and it worked fine again.

 

[Frigid]

in command prompt, try the chkdsk function with /R to fix any disk errors.

 

[r0wlzi]

Sounds like its just had a rough time. Reformat it if you dont have anything valuable Microsoft recommends a reformat every 6 months.