IMac sometimes forgets it has a hard drive

I've got an iMac that sometimes, with no obvious cause, freezes, and when restarted, shows the icon that says it can't find a boot drive. But then the next day, try again and it boots up just fine. The first time this happened, ok, weird, whatever. But then, after working trouble-free for 2 weeks, the same thing happened again. This time, the screen froze just after midnight Monday morning, when no one would have been using the machine. (There are no graphics anomalies related to this, by the way; the screen always looks fine.)
Of course this behaviour is unacceptable, but I have no idea what to do about it. I hesitate to send it in for service, because I figure they'll just boot it, say the machine is fine, and hand it back unfixed. Has anyone seen this problem before and found the cause, so I can fix it myself or at least tell the service people what to look for?
Thanks
Message was edited by: anothersmurf

If this issue is only with an internal hard drive, and no external media devices with storage are connected, then I would think the issue is with the computer's physical RAM. That RAM can either be poorly seated, or just slightly out of spec, and not be detectable by the hardware test that came with the computer as bad.
If the issue is with any external storage device, it may need a firmware update for its interface to be connected to your Mac more reliably.

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IMac sometimes forgets it has a hard drive

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