I've been having an intermittent problem lately that occurs at bootup:

The system hangs while doing the POST; whatever is going on happens before
the video is initialized as there is no video out. The access lights for
the CDROM drive and the HD are on steady and stay that way, and there are
no beeps. I haven't noticed whether the keyboard lights have flashed or
not. Also, I do not hear the hard drives (of which there are two) spin up.

At this point, the system is totally hung- the reset and power buttons do
not work (ATX mobo), and I have to cycle the power at the power strip to
get the machine to respond, after which it generally starts normally and
runs fine once booted.

What I suspect is that one of the two hard drives has a failing bearing on
the platter and is not spinning up, but I don't know enough about the POST
sequence to judge whether spinup should be happening at this particular point.

Anyone have ideas on this?

Thanks-

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Rick Lindstrom
<[log in to unmask]>
Tallahassee, FL.
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