Lost Boot setup

[D.Arbib]

This is peculiar.

On boot or re-booting my XPproSP2 setup I am losing the boot setup sequence and get a blank page untill finally my default drive (of two) after a minute or two comes to life quite normally

I have run sfc /scannow, chkdsk and other error finders, but nothing changes.

This is awkward as I cannot set to boot from CD to re-install XPpro
and frankly I don't know where to turn next.

I can change in boot.ini the drive I wish to have as default.

Might it be sensible to re-download the Asus motherboard BIOS setup?

Please, please help

[eyeCpc]

Do you have the option to choose the boot device with the F8 key at post? That would seen next to the press DEL now for entering the bios setup. That will show the floppy option above the hard drives and then any optical drives installed on the system. If you are unable to enter the bios setup an update to reprogram the bios or a new battery for the board may be needed. A weak battery will cause problems.

[D.Arbib]

No, I didn't have. And DEL was dead as a dodo. Yes, in fact I did re-flash Motherboard BIOS. Initally I got a fright as absolutely nothing would boot up, but, miraculously, the normal boot setup re-appeared. Now System has returned to normal, but I have no idea why this happened.

This series can now be put into limbo

[eyeCpc]

Asus generally use a CR2032 Lithium battery on their boards. If the board has seen a year or longer the initial signs of a weak battery are the loss of cmos information which will cause boot problem along with a few other things. For the $2-$3 price tag it's fast way to tell before assuming a board fault if you start seeing this again.

[TheMajor]

Sometimes a bad CD/DVD-ROM that isn't bootable or a bad optical drive can cause delays when using CD/DVD as the primary boot device.

[eyeCpc]

The problem there is not being able to get into the bios setup program itself for a short period of time to change the boot order or boot device. That can only be caused by bad bios(corrupted programming info lost), failing eprom, or a weak battery needing replacement.