Boot up problems - "Strike F1 key to continue..."

Dell Dimension 8300, 1GB Ram, 160GB HDD, Windows XP (SP2)

Three weeks ago , I started getting the message "Strike F1 key to continue, press F2 for Setup utility" whenever I booted my computer. Whenever I pressed F1, it simply repeated the message, when I pressed F2, I went into setup but came out to the same message. All I could do was boot up from the Windows disk. At that time I had 2 x 120GB HDD.

I looked on several forums and they all agreed that I needed a new Hard drive. I bought and installed the new SATA 160GB hard drive and everything went well, it took me the whole day to re-install all my backups (lucky) and software, which involved re-booting many times with no problem. I then updated Windows XP to SP2, again with no problems. I switched my machine off at the end of the day.

When I came to switch my machine on next morning, the same message appeared, so I visited the forums again. I have tried all the following solutions

1) Flash my BIOS

2) Pressed Ctrl+Alt+D at the Dell logo

3) Enter Setup, press F

All had no impact whatsoever, only one thing has made a slight difference. My Setup was configured as follows:

Drive Configuration

Diskette Drive A:.........3.5 inch, 1.44MB

Sata Primary Drive............ Off

Sata Secondary Drive........Off

Primary Master Drive.........Off

Primary Slave Drive...........Off

Secondary Master Drive...CD-ROM DEVICE

Secondary Slave Drive.....CD-ROM DEVICE

IDE DRIVE UDMA.............On

I amended the Sata Primary and Secondary Drives to Auto, which changed the setup to the following:

Drive Configuration

Diskette Drive A:.........3.5 inch, 1.44MB

Sata Primary Drive............ Unknown Device

Sata Secondary Drive........Unknown Device

Primary Master Drive.........Off

Primary Slave Drive...........Off

Secondary Master Drive...CD-ROM DEVICE

Secondary Slave Drive.....CD-ROM DEVICE

IDE DRIVE UDMA.............On

The result was I still got the message, but when I pressed F1 it continued the boot-up process as normal. However, every time I go back into Setup, it reverts to OFF again for both the SATA drives.

Upon the recommendation of MAJESTIC, I replaced Motherboard battery, which had no effect whatsoever. However, he/she also recommended ‘Clearing the NVRAM, this I did by going into the BIOS, pressing the Caps Lock, Scroll Lock and Number Lock keys followed by Alt+E, Alt+F and Alt+B. That seemed to do the job for a couple of days then the problem would return, however, now that doesn't even do the job.

The Hard Disk Sequence, has the following

1)       Hard disk drive (not installed)

2)       Unknown device (not installed)

The Boot Sequence has the following:

1)       Disk Drive

2)       IDE CD-ROM Device

3)       Hard Disk drive (not installed)

Call me paranoid, but I think the hard drive is not being recognised, but neither was the old factory setup HDD, which had exactly the same configuration.

I'm hoping somebody has the simple solution, if you do, please, please help?