Odd harddrive issue - Loads OS one time, but not the next

[CommonSense]

I have two hard drives with Windows XP Pro w/ SP3. I leave my computer on all the time. The other morning I woke up and saw a blue screen of death. I restarted the machine and it loaded my primary hard drive like normal. I came back a few moments later and it has blue screened again. I restarted the machine and entered the BIOS. The BIOS shows my secondary drive but does not show my primary. I exited the BIOS and it loaded windows off my secondary hard drive.

This has been repeatedly happening for the past two days. My primary hard drive will show up again and it will load windows from that. Then it will crash (bsod) and load windows from my secondary drive. Both hard drives crash via blue screen of death though. I have not had any issues with blue screens or either hard drive crashing until two days ago.

I also had an issue where my machine would randomly turn off and I would have to press the power button hundreds of times for it to turn back on. This problem has gone away since the blue screens/crashing started. Isn't that odd?

So both drives appear to work. I can load windows off both of them. However, occasionally the primary will not even show up in the BIOS.

Does anyone have an idea what could be causing this? Buying new hardware is out of the picture right now. I am starting a new job on the 19th and will be able to purchase a new rig then.

Anything I can do in the mean time to keep my primary hard drive up and running properly??

Thank you.

 

[BoBBYI986]

Hi, try resetting the cmos could be an issue with the sata or Ide controller depending on what controller your using. also try replacing the data cables, I've had some cases where I get blue screens from faulty data cables. generally if your system doesnt detect the drive it could be the drive's faulty, data cables faulty, bus/port is faulty or the controller it self is not detecting the drive. have you taken note of the bsods? if you could post the error code that would be helpful. for your powering on issues try disconnecting the power switch from the motherboards control panel and using a flat head screw drive to short the two power switch pins.