Minor boot error

[John Gray]

I am occasionally getting the following message on a laptop at boot time:

"Windows could not start because of a computer disk hardware configuration problem.
Could not read from the selected boot disk. Check boot path and disk hardware.
Please check the Windows documentation about hardware disk configuration and your hardware reference manuals for additional information. "

When I press Enter, the boot sequence continues happily.

None of the solutions in KB314477 seem to apply. Everything else works as expected.

For example, I've looked at boot.ini and it 'appears' to be OK:

[boot loader]
timeout=30
default=multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(0)partition(2)\WINDOWS
[operating systems]
multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(0)partition(2)\WINDOWS="Microsoft Windows XP Professional" /fastdetect /NoExecute=OptIn

Disk Management shows that there is a 78 MB FAT EISA partition in front of the 106 GB NTFS System C: drive.

CHKDSK C: /F /V /R runs clean (takes just under an hour!).

Has anyone any clues where to go/what to do next? Thanks!

[JoeP]

Warm boot, cold boot, or both?
Mains or battery or both?
Is it a SMART drive? If so, have you checked the SMART status?
Have you run any disk checking utilities from the disk vendor?

Joe