Primary and Secondary drives not found???

[ahol29]

My family has a Dell Optiplex G1.  For a long time it ran fine but now when u start it up and it gets to the screen that has a bar at the bottom and it says BIOS under it, it takes forever to load.  The bar fills up but then it takes at least five minutes for us to get to the next screen.  

At the next screen it says Primary drive not found and Secondary drive not found.  Then it says press F1 to continue or F2 to go to Setup Utility.  When we press F1 it just loads up fine and we can start Windows XP.

It only has a harddrive, cd-rom, and floppy.

Any thoughts on  why it can't find these drives?

[ahol29]

Can anyone help me??

[Computer_Commando]

CMOS battery might need replacement.

[ahol29]

whats the cmos battery?

[Computer_Commando]

http://www.computerhope.com/jargon/c/cmos.htm
http://www.computerhope.com/help/cmos.htm

[Redeyes_Gambit]

Just a friendly warning since you seem new to this, DONT LEAVE YOUR CMOS BATTERY OUT OF THE MACHINE FOR MORE THAN 15 MINUTES!

If you do your toast, and your system will not function ever.

Keep us up to date! Hope that fixes your problem.
Signed,
Red