I think when installing xp on the final install part I did not reset my bios to boot to HD (from boot to cd). Now when I start up the HD is not found and I get bios asking if I want to boot to cd. If I press reset 2 or 3 times it the mb will find the hd and boot fine. I would think this is bios problem but if I put in another hd it is found first shot, so this particular problem HD only does this. All my hds are set to cable select and they boot from on primary master. My bios has frist boot floppy disabled and 2nd is HD. Since this happens only with this hd I think it is the installation doing it but does not make sense.
when it ask "press any key to boot from cd" ignore it, the computer will eventually boot from the hd. if that doesnt work u might want to reset bios to default.
I had the same problem with a particular hard drive. It was a 20GB Western Digital drive rebranded as an Apple drive. Whenever I would try to boot from it (BIOS set to boot ONLY from hard drive, with CD booting disabled), it would still take a few hard resets before it would discover the hard drive and boot fine. Otherwise, it would say, "Operating system not found" or something along those lines. It turns out that the problem was due to some Apple-specific firmware on the drive, because the drive would work perfectly when wiped, put back in the Mac, and reinstalled with OS X. But if I used it in a PC for any version of Windows or even LINUX, it would do this random disappearing act. I think that your drive has "firmware damage" or something like that. Just replace it with a more cooperative one. The drive warranty should cover this type of problem, and if it is no longer under warranty, then it is probably not worth using anyway.
you may have to enter hard drive specs from the drive sticker into the bios?...sometimes gets 'lost' as in no hard drive. another remote possibility: check cmos battery