As far as the backup battery, this is possable. I didnt think about the bios backup battery on the main board. It can do some flakey things when it goes south. But usually it is quite consistant in loosing all the settings, but finding them after a bit and fading in and out. You said is seems to be finding everything else OK.

If you have a spare hard drive, plug it in as well and see if it reacts the same...or sees it as ok.

If it sees it, then your hard drive is still the culprit. If it does not, you might have a bad SATA cable or maybe a bad SATA port that the cable plugs into. Try plugging it into a diffrent SATA port, and make sure your BIOS has that port turned on (Most main boards allow you to control the on/off state of each sata port)

If that dosnt help, you might need a new battery.

1. So first try new sata port even with the old drive.

2. If that fails, and you have a spare drive around, swap it into the same port the origonal is in and see if it recognizes the drive. If it does 9even though you cant boot up with it) it tells you your SATA port and cable are OK, that leaves the BIOS battery and the hard drive.

3. Buy a replacment bios battery. It will be a minimal investment and good to replace anyway if your system is over 2-3 years old.

4. If BIOS is ok, that leaves the hard drive. The USB kit is fairly inexpensive and an easy way to test the hard drive for functionality. You cant boot with it, but if the hardware is good and the hard drive data has failed, (making the Operating system inoperative) Its also good to have around at upgrade time.

5. If that fails, your only option is the recovery service, as the hardware is hosed to the point of being inoperative. The platters still have the info, it just needs to be removed and placed in a working drive case. (only to be performed in a clean room environment with a tech that knows what they are doing.)

Roman