Paul wrote:
wrote:
Thanks Ron C .

It definitely seems to be the CD drive spinning up then down.

It didn't have any boot priority set, so I set it at 2nd after the HD
set at 1st.

Hope this eliminates the sound; we'll see; let you know.

Thanks also to all responders ...

If that's a CD drive making that sound, there has
to be a disc in the tray.

Is this a dual optical drive machine ?

Have you checked both trays ?

Optical drives don't even crank the spindle to
a speed like that, unless there is a sustained read
occurring. They start reading at 1X for "casual" reads.
At startup, the BIOS won't be reading at 5-6MB/sec
and will only be "poking" the drive. Only the actual
boot sequence would read at 5-6MB/sec (such as when a
WinPE boot image loads sequentially).

And your drive isn't "insane", because the speed does
eventually come down.

That doesn't strike me as optical, *unless* you're
leaving a disc in the tray *and* the optical drive
is defective somehow.

Â*Â* Paul

I would just disconnect the power cable and try a boot.

Ed