Shoutbox

This is very very annoying now.

Sometimes then i start my pc up i go into a weird black screen with white writing (something about the computer set up) which then goes into another black screen. At this point window xp loads up normally (though in the past day or so sometimes it doesnt even move on from the black screen with white writing.

If i try and play a game or listen to a cd i learn that my cd drives arent on. If i go into my computer i have no d or e drives.

To rectify this in the past i have gone into

my computer
view system information
hardware
device manager
and tried scanning for hardware changes within my d drive.

this SOMETIMES gets it back working again but only with a 50 50 success rate.

Rebootign the pc works sometimes but a few nights ago i rebooted 10 times with no luck only to wake up the next day with it working again once i'd scanned for hardware changes. today its gone again and then i tried scanning for hardware changes it still wont load cds.

I think i'll need to get a man out to try and fix it since the computer is under guarantine but its still massively annoying. anyone got any advice?

I have

intel pentium 4 cpu 1.80GHZ
windows xp sp1
256MB Ram
NVIDIA Geforce 2 Mx/Mx 400

My disk drives appear to be called Maxtor 4k040H2

Any help at being able to cure this problem or would this be complicated and simply require some major repair work?

I'm not sure this might be the cause, but you should make sure that all connections, specially the IDE cable (that fat one like a film attached to the center of the driver).
Check both ends of that cable: the end of the driver and the end at the motherboard. An unstable connection may cause this kind of failures and could harm your system as it's not prepared for plugging and unplugging IDE drives while being on.

You should also check out the power cable (the mid-sized plug with 4 holes) just in the case the drive doesn't respond to eject or stops working suddently (watch its LED).

You might also have a virus. Get to http://www.activescan.com to scan and heal your computer for free online, if you don't have any AV installed yourself.