ok, thank you. i have seen this error before in similar situations. make sure nothing is shorting, all cables especially IDE cables are plugged in correctly. if you have installed any extra expansion cards recently remove them. if that fails reset cmos. last time i had something like this happen to me i figured it was due to a PCI NIC i had just installed. i know this error shouldn't be caused by hardware problems like this but the fact is it apparently can be