Hi people, any help you can OFFER for this issue would be appreciated.
Okay, I have an asus P4P800 motherboard, XP, 2.6ghz, one 80G WD system drive and 2x200G Hard Drives, 1xCD player+1xCD burner.  millenium matrox video+rme soundcard.

So, I turn on the computer, hard drive screen comes up.  Doesn't go to windows, goes to a screen that says "Reboot and Select proper Boot device or Insert Boot Media...etc".  So, CTRL Alt Delete, gets me into Bios Setup.  And....whoa, this is different...The primary IDE Master is being recognized. (It wasn't before).  The Primary IDE Slave is Not Detected.  Everything else is recognized.  Holy cow I just got into Windows!  This board is the best!

Okay THOUGH, I'm thinking this is a definite problem waiting to happen even though I just got lucky.  Is my C: Drive on the fritz, should I test it or replace it? What do you think I should do...??  Thanks!If that was the first time you turned on your computer (I'm assuming it's new?) then the BIOS probably just wasn't set up right.If the drives are not recognized correctly by the BIOS, WIndows is irrelevant.

Free DIAGNOSTICS can be download from the APPROPRIATE drive maker's site, if you think that could be an issue.Okay, something is definitely up.  Got into windows (from before) computer just froze. Blue screen.  "Problem detected. Kernel - Data - Inpage - Error....etc. " I hit a key, I get back into windows.  The computer is about three years old, the drives are about a year old.

Based on the fact that the system disk was not recognized before (and then was, after a couple tries) I'm assuming that might be the problem.  Additional info - there have been a few other times in the past month, I've heard a loud, repeating spinning sound, which must have been a hard drive, and the computer froze.  I restarted and it was usually okay.  Then, that dissappeared, everything' s been fine for the last month until today...

pre-emptive recommendations appreciatedSee the previous post...