Repeat failed start up

I have a custom built pc (specs in my profile) that had been working fine for about a year. About two months ago I noticed that when I hit the power button to turn the machine on I hear the normal power up sound and the disk spin up and then it would shut off after about 2 seconds and retry again...machine turn on disk spin up...then dead...It would repeat this a few times and then start up as normal. During this time there is nothing on the monitor. Over the past two months the process takes longer and longer with more and more attempts. This also occurs when the computer goes to sleep. When you touch the keyboard or move the mouse it attempts to spin up but then fails goes dead and keeps retrying. At this point it takes about 20-30 minutes to finally boot up. Once it boots up and the screen turns on with windows login etc.. it runs perfectly fine no issues. A friend thought this may be impending hardrive failure and adding an SSD may solve the problem. Any other thoughts would be helpful. Thank you very much for your help and advice!!

I would test the HD, and also do a process of elimination on all components and peripherals. Take off as many as possible and see if there's a difference. Add back one at a time to find the offender. A BIOS flash could be in order too, but standard caution applies: there is risk involved.