Del on start

[upstate]

I have a older dell p4 with windows xp. Use to work well now for about a year this is what happens. On startup it runs through bios setup, reads floppy, reads cd reads hd. Then pops "hit del to continue" if i do the machien works ok. I have unhooked floppy, unhooked cd, tried different cd, replaced cmos battery, it this a hard drive problem or a mother board problem.

 

[The_Other_One]

Is there any way you could get a picture of the screen? If nothing else, skim over it and confirm there's nothing you might be missing. It's pretty rare you're asked to press a key without some kind of explanation. Heck unhooking devices probably didn't help much because it's probably going to warn you the system configuration changed

If you're 100% sure nothing else shows up, try entering the bios, double check everything, then save and exit. Sometimes simply saving the configuration will solve the problem.

Also, you asked about the hard drive. I doubt it's HD related UNLESS it's something to do with SMART. If this is the case you should have some kind of prompt come up.

 

[konsole]

It goes to the actual bios screen or just some other kind of setup screen?

 

[johnb35]

Read the event viewer in the bios menu if the manufacturer put one in there. It should tell you what the problem is. Most likely a bad cable or drive.