3-yr-old HP ZT3000. For the past week, the laptop has had a problem when booting up. Half the time, the laptop boots to Windows XP without issue; the other half, the HP logo appears and fades, being replaced (as usual) with the F10=Rom Based Setup and F12=Network Service Boot msg in the bottom left. PROBLEM: At this point, instead of booting windows, the system hangs. I cannot access the BIOS, and pressing F10 and F12 gives an 'Entering Setup' or 'Attempting to Boot Network' status message, at which point the system is completely frozen. IF I do not press either F10 or F12, and wait between 5-15 minutes, the hard-drive-based password utility (which I have never previously used, and currently does not appear when the system behaves normally) appears. If I press nothing, it will hang indefinitely on this utility; if I press enter, it will return to the F10/F12 screen, with a flashing cursor against the middle of the left side of the screen. After a few more minutes, the old standard 'Non-System Disk Error' will appear; at this point, nothing else happens and there is no option but to restart the computer and repeat the process (as there is no non-system disk in any of the drives). MY ATTEMPTS TO RESOLVE: When the computer is exhibiting this behavior, there is no way to load Windows or anything else. It will not boot from the CD-ROM drive, in addition to the hard drive, which leads me to believe that it may have something to do with the BIOS or a connection. I have not found a pattern yet for when the system will work, though it still continues to be intermittent; sometimes the computer will behave normally, other times it will exhibit the problem repeatedly, and there is nothing to do but walk away from the system and try again a half-hour later.When the computer does load Windows, it behaves flawlessly. I have run every diagnostic program that I have, and none of them have found any issues. Any help to solve this mystery problem would be appreciated!
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