Getting a laptop to recognise HDD?

Ry@n · 29 Nov 2007 at 17:01

I have a friends laptop here (Packard Bell).

Now he has just bought the recovery disks and asked me to fix it as it was slow. I ran a HDD test and it failed. I thought great and put a new HDD in, and went to reload windows from the recovery disks.

It then comes up with a message at the start "inconfiguration error" and wont carry on.

I have tried formatting the HDD in a caddy as NTFS and FAT32, also tried zeroing the HDD and nothing has worked. Also tried several HDD's.

Can anyone give me some things to try ? I really would like to fix this as ive been trying for a few weeks now.
Thanks,
Ryan

ANDARIAL · 29 Nov 2007 at 17:20

ide hdd?Do ide laptop hdd have jumpers?set to slave etc?
is it the same make /model as original?drawing too much power etc
just a few ideas for you to look at

is it a full windows disk(some use the hidden partition on the hdd for most of the files)

Ry@n · 29 Nov 2007 at 17:45

Yer its IDE but the original HDD didnt have any jumpers so i guess it doesnt need any.

Ill have to check different manufacturers but i cant see this causing the problem. I fix laptops for a living and this has been to worst laptop to work with.

Indy500 · 29 Nov 2007 at 17:48

Can't you use another copy of Windows (OEM) and enter the serial that's stuck on the laptop?

paradigm · 29 Nov 2007 at 17:49

I wonder if the old disk had the configuration options (a BIOS partition or similar) on it, and thus without the correct partition info, it won't boot?

Will it boot a CD if there is no HDD in the laptop at all?

sr4470 said:
Can't you use another copy of Windows (OEM) and enter the serial that's stuck on the laptop?

What? That doesn't even make sense :/

Indy500 · 29 Nov 2007 at 17:52

paradigm said:
What? That doesn't even make sense :/

The recovery disc may be the problem...I used the above method when I couldn't find the original disc for a PB laptop. Used an OEM copy of Windows, during install I entered the PB serial, worked fine.

Ry@n · 29 Nov 2007 at 18:09

Right i have installed the NEW hdd i got for it again, then i used my XP Pro disk and it booted from it fine, and is currently formatting the HDD ready for installation.

Looks like the discs he bought for £37!!!! are not the correct ones of faulty?

Anyway, im going to see if this works, if it does then ill get him to return the disks and leave it at that.

Thanks allot

Skeeter · 29 Nov 2007 at 18:28

Hard drives form people like PB seem to come with a hidden partition on them which is incharge of the install from the recovery disks. I seem to remember it contains all the driver so the disks can be generic. Works fine, until you use a different HDD....