Should I flash my BIOS?

I would start by changing the battery on the motherboard. It may not be strong enough to hold the cmos settings when you power down the machine. Had a similar problem a few years ago. If you can get the machine to come up by warm booting it from theNo OS screen. I would start with the battery.

Good Luck

1. Do not flash the bios unless you have determined that the bios code itself is the problem, and that there IS an available update to your bios.

2. It sounds like you might be trying to boot off of a floppy or CD before your hard drive. Check this by going into the SETUP mode when your machine boots (typically the DEL key or F10 key during bootup). Check the boot order. If the first boot source is not your hard drive, I would suggest making the hard drive first. If you ever really need to boot from a floppy or CD, you can always change it.

3. If you make this change now, then turn off the machine for the weekend, is the change still there on Monday. There is a battery which provides backup power to hold the CMOS settings, and that battery may need to be replaced. A common symptom of this is that the clock is wrong when you turn on the machine or other CMOS settings change when the machine is powered down.

4. The virus program is noting that the CMOS has changed. This could be the work of a virus (boot from a protected floppy and do a scan). It could also be because of a change you made (as above). It could also be because your battery is dead and the CMOS settings were cleared. Is the message there truely EVERY time youboot, or is it really only when you have powered off?

Good luck.

I like barts answer, and stillatit is correct when stating that you shouldn't flash your bios unless you are certain it's the problem, or there is a feature you need in a bios upgrade.

question, how's the system clock faring? is it keeping accurate time? or is it starting to fall behind? the clock can be monitored as an accurate reflection of the cmos battery's health.

Try replacing the battery first. If you have the motherboard layout, make sure that the jumper on the motherboard is set to hold the CMOS settings. It could be on the wrong pins, or not on at all.

Go through the CMOS and make sure that the enable virus on the motherboard setting is off. If you have virus protection on that computer, the CMOS enable virus setting is causing those messages.

Flashing the BIOS is really a last resort, because you could make your problem worse!

With all of these suggestions, hopefully you'll get your computer going.

Do not flash your BIOS. Access your Bios Setup and look for Hard Disk Pre-delay section and changed the time setting to 9 or 12 seconds. If the problem persists after doing everybody's suggestions, my suggestion is to replace your System Boot Files.I also suggest you to run your virus protection program if possible since it's the one giving you the message that the CMOS has changed.

sound like your cmos battery is weak. I wouldn't suggest flashing your bios any time you've got drive disapearing, if you fail halfway through the update, you're hosed.
and are you starting the machine with a floppy in the drive? get in your bios and tell it to boot from hard drive first. if it changes by itself, you need a new battery. if you try to boot and it says "non-system disk error", then youv've got a floppy in the drive, trying to boot off of a:. if it says "no operating system found" your motherboard can't find a drive to boot off of, a: or c:! is your hard drive failing? loose ribbon or power connector? when you get the "no operating system" did you notice the drives being detected in the post, or were they missing?

This is a long shot depending on the type of board you have. I just had to have the board on my Gateway replaced for the same error.Odds are you have an Oxnard brand mother board. this board has a problem with the ise connectors going bad but seems to act like a hardrive or bios error. God luck and email if you have an questions.

This question was closed by the author