how long can i leave pc on

Hi there ..my pc is giving me greif.again..If i leave my pc of longter then 3hrs when i turn it on it says plz insert boot disc ..blah blah so i gotta go into bios and reset last known good config !! reboot like 7times? b4 my O/s loads?? so if i leave my pc on 24/7 im fine !! I can reboot.Im not sure leaving the pc on all yr 24/7 is the answer..lol... np seems to be when the HD is cold..god knows!!.... anyhow I was going to get a new HD becuz when i loaded xp..during this boot problem i booted from the cd ..said installing xp ?.. well it couldnt find no hardware? or soemthing it said? so im asuming its the HD?? Also the writing on boot up says Primary master None?? but seconday slave duz have writing..weird.... Bascially someone rebuilt this forme using my old drive? and ram..cuz my old pc..had big tiem gone power supply motherboard etc... so he used my Hard drive HP packard to put in this new tower !! And my ram?? and ever since ive had problems?... last time was a boot problem 2..verifing data it got stuck at so i took it back to him he wiped my HD again re - enstalled my xp pro now 2months later this is happeining again?? so my conclusion is the Hard drive since it keeps happening?...now if i go buy a new HD..do i just take out the old one plug in the new one? and load xp windows how do i set it as master?? someone said plastic tab or somethjing..so u set it as master?? i dont care about the programs on this current hard drive..ill start again with updated and software is all backed up?...im a bit pc illiterate? sorry... so do i basiclaly plug the new HD in ...where old one was?? and reload windows and boot from CD thats all i know how to do really..ITs a NTFS system..if there is any where i can print something off to follow while doing it would be appreicated..sorry for the long post but diving me nuts these boot probelems?... and i have no Flopy drive either only Cd rewrite.. my system is 256ram. pentium 3..
or is there a way i can make a cd rom boot disc? with xp pro?..


oh i found a site with a picture of what it says the last black white picture on thiis page is what it duz i dont want to buy a HD if not needed..
Verifying DMI Pool Data ...........
DISK BOOT FAILURE, INSERT SYSTEM DISK AND PRESS ENTER

http://www.mysuperpc.com/build/pc_first_boot.shtml


thanks in advance..maddawgz..

 

maddawgz,

Lots of questions there. Let me handle at least some of them.

• Master/slave is controlled two ways. One is to set both drives to cable select, then position on the cable determines master and slave. Generally, the master is at the end and slave is in the middle, although there is a color coding of the cables (black=master, grey=slave). You can also has set master/slave. It is basically in the same jumper/switch area on the back of the drive where cable select (or CS) is set. There should be diagrams on the drive to show jumper position for a given configuration.
• If the drive is really failing, you'll want it as slave only as long as it takes to move the data over to the new drive or do a straight cloning.
• When I've done this in the past, I've simply cloned the old drive onto the new drive To do this, I added the new drive as the slave, booted the system up, used one of the drive cloning programs (I've used Acronis True Image), cloned the old drive on the new (probably OK since your problems are intermittent), and then set the new drive as the master and generally pulled the old drive out. The potential problem here is you may be cloning a corrupted disk. Hard to tell at this point.
• It's hard to debug potential hardware problems remotely. Although it sounds as though it could be a hard disk failure coming up, there are many other potential causes here. If you uncomfortable working on this yourself, by all means, bring it to a shop and tell them exactly what you want to walk out with.

Blue

 

thanks BZ for your repsonse..I think ill have to go to a shop? or just leave the pc on 24/7 ..seems to not fail that way!..weird..untill i buy a new HD ?..not to worried about the cloning ill just reload stuff again..thanx maddawgz

 

The other thing you could try is SpinRite. I own a copy, and it's easy to use, but I haven't really needed it yet. $90 US, about cost neutral with a new drive, I only got it since I have lots of drives in the house. A local shop may have a copy and offer it as a service (shop type licensing is 4 copies kept at current revision level - so it might be pricey for a small shop).

As for leaving things on 24/7, I have for the past 3 years.

Blue