>Hi!
>System: dell PII, 64Mb RAM, 300Mhz, 3Gb hard drive, win95B.
>Problem: every few days we are getting a message "operating
system not
>found" on cold boot. Usually second boot goes smoothly. Today
we had to
>power down four times before we could get on. Once on, the
computer
>behaves normally - no slowdowns or freezes.
>
>Why is it that sometimes the PC finds operating system at once
and
>sometimes only after several attempts ?
>

Hi,
    Couple of ideas off the top of my head.  One, the hard drive
is  starting to fail (it is taking longer to speed up and
therefore is not ready when the computer wants it to).  I would
back up your data on another media in case this is the
(doubtful) problem.  Second, you are using a fast POST and the
harddrive is not having enough time to speed up.  You can check
the bios to see if fast POST exists on your computer, and if so,
if it is enabled.  Something else you could look for in you BIOS
is to see if it has a boot delay.  Using this will give your
hardrive a little longer to speed up.

HTH,
Donald Gaither

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