very odd boot issue

[Cars066]

OK, i'm running an old, custom built 1.15GHz athlon w/ 256MB RAM and Win XP SP3...

 

 

 

It was running quite well untill the slave 60GB drive failed. At that point, i was on a 40GB master with the XP i'm currently running, yet the computer was configured to work with a slave/master set up. It wouldn't boot, half the time, so i found out that i can alter that setting in the BIOS... then it was working pretty well with only one HDD, the 40GB w/ win xp sp3. Now the PC is beginning to boot up 20-50% of the time, on average, with failures displaying the standard "Boot Error, Insert Diskette X:" error.

 

 

 

Strangely, it boots 100% so long as i change the "S.M.A.R.T. for Hard Disks" option in BIOS. Whether it's enabling or disabling it, simply changing the setting allows it to boot successfully once.

 

 

 

Also, a defrag seems to help for a period of time.

 

 

 

But after a few boots, it goes right back to failing unless i change that SMART option every time >< .

 

 

 

 

 

Anyone know what i could possibly do? I'm at my wit's end, as techsupportforum hasn't been very helpful.

[JoeDaStudd]

Sounds like something else is going to die.

 

Disconnect the dead drive and it should work fine regardless.

[Cars066]

Sounds like something else is going to die.

 

Disconnect the dead drive and it should work fine regardless.

 

the dead drive is disconnected, all i have running is the 40 gb one.

 

 

 

no clue why it's acting up, perhaps it's something in the far reaches of my registry that no defrag has fixed?