Boot up problem with 2.8ghz XP Pro machine

I'm hoping that someone can help me out with a annoying little problem that I'm having with one of my XP Pro machines.

When the machine goes to boot up it hangs before it even gets a chance to spin the drive. It just sits there and alternates flashing the hard-drive light and the cd-rom drive light.

The only way to shut it off at once it does this is to kill the power at the back of the machine. Then try the process all over again. After the third or fourth try of booting it up the machine will come up just fine.


It's a PIV 2.8 ghz machine with a LITE-ON LTR-52327S cd-rom drive. There is no disk in the machine, a updated virus scan has been ran and the machine is clean.

Any thoughts or ideas anyone has would be welcomed.

Thanks,
Ishan

So this only happens some of the time? Did you add/change anything on the computer that caused this to start?

It only appears to be happening after the machine sits inactive and shut off for an hour or so.

After further poking it appears that the problem might be linked to installing programs onto the drive. I had just installed Neverwinter Nights when the problem started, after removing NWN the problem went away.

Earlier today I installed Dreamweaver MX and the problem returned. Removed Dreamweaver and the problem went away.