Asus P4B problem

[newbie_canuck]

I have a P4B motherboard with a P4 1.5GHz (Willamette). The problem I'm having is with one of my hard drives. I have two 40 gig Maxtor hard drives connected to the primary ide connector, one set to slave and the other master, and they are in the right postion on the cable. I have set the hard drives to turn off after 20 minutes, to reduce the noise from my system. Occasionally, when I try to access a file or program on the slave drive (after it has shut down) the screen will freeze and the computer starts to beep - 2 beeps with a pause in between. Usually, the slave drive will come to life, but other times the computer stays frozen. When this first started I sent the drive back to Maxtor for servicing, but they said there was nothing wrong with it. So maybe it's the motherboard. I successfully flashed to the most recent bios - 1012. Any ideas to remedy this?

 

[Mm9004]

Flip the drives around.

You never know....

If that does nothing, then remove one HDD, If that doesn't work remove the other. That way, you can rule out a bad HDD, and If you find out that on drive is bad, then you must either try using it in another system, or toss it.

(personally I would either give it away or take it apart.)

 

[newbie_canuck]

Thanks for the suggestion. I have tested both HDD's on thier own and both work fine. Since my initial post I have e-mailed the Asus support desk, so we'll see what they have to say.
Thanks again.

 

[newbie_canuck]

I'm using Windows XP Pro ... and yes, it beeps every time.

 

[Mm9004]

Here is a link to every kind beep code in the world:

http://www.hardwarecentral.com/hardwarecentral/tutorials/13/2/

Maybe it helps?

 

[newbie_canuck]

Thanks, I'll give it a try.