I've had to reset the date and time and then reboot and enter the bootup section to change the disk drive information so that once again it recognises my second hard drive.

I dont know what the cause of this problem is and i was hoping someone may know.

Also, during the last few months, it hasnt been uncommon for my system to lose up to an hour or so of time each day. Is this just a sign that my computers wearing out???

I have a rather old system now, pentium mmx 200 with 64m ram and 2 hard drives.

any help would be muchly appreciated.

yeh the battery would probably explain the losing of time on the clock. I'll have to get that replaced. It is my understanding that there is a clock built in which runs independantly of the system (which runs on the battery) and then when the computer is started, the computer clock is synced to the battery operated clock. If thats the case then yeah that makes sense.

However,

I rescanned my drives for virus's today (using the latest virus definitions) with McAfee virus scanner, and then again with the online symantic virus scanner you mentioned, and both results showed no virus's on the system. So I'm really not sure what is causing the bios to reset now and then. my initial thoughts were also that it may have been a virus, however i perform thorough scans pretty much weekly and update the virus definitions weekly and this has not detected any viruses. So i'm still at a loss to explain the resetting.

If anyone knows i'd be grateful for their response.

1) Motherboard battery is dead. Quite possible with the age of your computer. Have the battery replaced and this should fix the clock problem.

2) Magistr virus. Make sure to run thorough scans with an updated version of an antiviral software. You can run Symantec's free version on their website. It should pick up this little nasy virus. I had it once on one of my servers. It is known to do some really nasty stuff. Resetting your clock and BIOS is one of them. It can also delete the BIOS and cause serious problems. You may consider flashing the BIOS. Computer usually works fine until you reboot.

I guess if I was you, I would serious look into my second suggestion. Sounds like your system is a victim of a virus attack. There are several variations of the Magistr so look into other virus attacks as a possibility.

Good luck