I had just built a computer a while back ago. But I get an ocasional error from time to time, Disk Boot Failure, Insert system disk an press enter. I do and it restarts to my BIOS settings. I exit it and restarts an it tries to install xp. I remove the power cable to the harddrive and reconnect it. Boots into xp but doesn't see the D drive at times. Reconnect the cables to it and windows scans the drive and runs okay. Then the error starts again. It's a Pentium 4 Socket 478, BioStar Board P4M80-M4, DDR RAM 1 GB, SATA Drives 160 GB 300 GB, HDA Digital X Mystique 7.1 Gold, Radeoon X 1300DLoad and run the diagnostics from the HDD manuf. site...it sounds like that drive is failing.
You could also try a brand new SATA cable on the drive that boots.
Make sure all power is disconnected...It was a refurbished drive, but I get the error even if I set the Slave SATA to be a masterUnless the slave has an operating system installed on it this error will show up....
Try what was suggested.Okay, but you lost me. Where ? ?Where you mentioned DLoad and run the diagnostics from the HDD manuf. siteIf it's a Western Digital drive visit their site and DLoad and run the FREE diagnostics on that drive...
If it's a Seagate drive TRAVEL to their site and DLoad and run their FREE diagnostics on that drive...
If it's a Maxtor drive travel to their site and DLoad and run the FREE diagnostics on that drive...
If it's an IBM/Deskstar drive travel to their site etc. etc.I GOOGLED the matter and found what I needed but I want to know since I'm running a Maxtor 300 gb 7200 RPM 16 MB SATA/150 3.5 Harddrive if this would work for it or not? Heres what it said to do.

My hard drive is a Maxtor DiamondMax 10 6B300S0 (300GB, SATA(II)150, 7200RPM, 16MB, NCQ). The stock firmware was BANC1B70. When I contacted Maxtor, they informed me I would need to update to BANC1BY0 first... then update to BANC1E00. They sent me 2 files... BANC1BY0.EXE and BANC1EE0SABRE.EXE. Here is the flashing procedure...

1. Create a bootable Windows 98/ME diskette
(WinXP - go to My Computer, right-click A:, select Format, check the "Create MS-DOS boot disk" option, click Start button)

2. Insert boot diskette into floppy drive and run BANC1BY0.EXE
(check the "Writing on floopy" box and click OK... the Disk Image utility will extract the firmware to the diskette)

3. Insert ANOTHER diskette into floppy drive and run BANC1EE0SABRE.EXE
(the Disk Image utility will extract an image to the floppy disk)

4. Boot from FIRST floppy and flash firmware
(reboot PC with floppy in drive, at the C:\ prompt... type "DLOAD /I", when asked to confirm flash... tell it ok, may have to select top option SAYING "Download Firmware..."

5. Reboot with new firmware, and update firmware again
(reboot PC with SECOND firmware boot diskette in drive, it should autorun, you may see an error about E0Z flash mismatch, tell it to ignore and flash anyways [Maxtor told me this was a known issue], select the top option saying "Download Firmware..."

6. Reboot PC again with new firmware

Well if Maxtor is telling you this is what you need to do I think you should follow their advice. It sounds like there's a known issue with the drive.I got this off a site with the same problem but with a differnt HardDrive. I just want to know if the same PROGRAMS would work on mineNo I would not recommend you try that.
Firmware is drive specific and flashing it with the wrong firmware will most likely turn it into a paperweight.
I suggest you follow Patio's advice and test it with the proper drive diagnostic utility.
The one you need is called SeaTools and you'll find it on Seagate's site. (Seagate bought up Maxtor a while back so that's why it's from Seagate.)I'm going to try an contact Maxtor Monday to see what all I need. But this should work the same way?SeaTools would be the same as doing this?No updating the drive with new firmware is not the same as running SeaTools.
The firmware is the software that makes the hard drive function. SeaTools is a tool that test whether the hard drive is in good shape and error free.
The reason you should be careful with updating the firmware is because, if anything goes wrong it will most likely leave the drive completely inoperable. Only Maxtor would be able to recover it then and that will cost you. No warranty covers accidentally flashing the drive with the wrong firmware.