New hard drive in a laptop
HP zv5410

replaced the old drive
it will NOT boot from any windows disk, XPhome or pro. It tries for ~10secs then moves on to the hard-drive. We copied the install CD I bought with the machine and that didn't work. We've tried other windows CD's that have installed windows, and we've tried other brand new disk - all do the same thing. They are original install disks, not copies or upgrade disks.

BIOS has been checked and double checked and it's all good. Hit 'esc' on power-up and manually select CD to boot to and nothing, it still tries and moves on. Hit f10 and checked the drive - it's good.

It did however boot automatically from a linux CD, so we installed that OS and it's running nicely (64bit ubuntu). So we know the CD hardware etc works. Even wireless works :)

I like linux - but I need windows for software I use that is only windows based.

I know this isn't really a seti question - but this lappie was doing seti till the drive died.

Ideas on why this lappie will not accept a windows CD?

Thanks

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This has probably already been checked, but is the bios set to boot from CD, then HD. Not HD then CD? Basically, set the CD to first over all other devices.

Astro - yup that has been checked

I'm going to check jumpers on the old and new drives.

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Have you tried in BIOS to load BIOS default settings and then installing windows ?

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_\|/_
U r s

was there any formatting software with the new drive? If you know the manufacturer, most have tools you can format with. The hitachi drive fitess tool even lets you set all the MBR bits to "0", like an erase.

Nevermind.

It's not even reading the CD drive is it(except for the linux cd? So my suggestion is stupid.

OK, What if the install disk is a DVD and the reader is a CD???

I'm going to check jumpers on the old and new drives.

Yes - some laptops has CD/DVD set as master and harddrive as slave.
Most harddrive has CableSelect (no jumper) as default setting - but not all.

Kiva

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Greetings from Norway

Crunch3er & AK-V8 Inside

New hard drive in a laptop
HP zv5410

replaced the old drive
it will NOT boot from any windows disk, XPhome or pro. It tries for ~10secs then moves on to the hard-drive. We copied the install CD I bought with the machine and that didn't work. We've tried other windows CD's that have installed windows, and we've tried other brand new disk - all do the same thing. They are original install disks, not copies or upgrade disks.

BIOS has been checked and double checked and it's all good. Hit 'esc' on power-up and manually select CD to boot to and nothing, it still tries and moves on. Hit f10 and checked the drive - it's good.

It did however boot automatically from a linux CD, so we installed that OS and it's running nicely (64bit ubuntu). So we know the CD hardware etc works. Even wireless works :)

I like linux - but I need windows for software I use that is only windows based.

I know this isn't really a seti question - but this lappie was doing seti till the drive died.

Ideas on why this lappie will not accept a windows CD?

Thanks

My Toshiba Laptop would not boot from XP either. I wanted to format and just load windows without all their crap but couldn't seem to manage but it would boot up from their restore disc. tried getting it to start on their disc and switching to windows and that didn't work.

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Official Abuser of Boinc Buttons...
And no good credit hound!

Here's how to reset to default Bios:

Reloading the default settings
Complete the following steps to reload the factory installed BIOS Setup settings:
In the BIOS Setup utility, select the Exit tab.
Select Load Setup Defaults .
Select Save Changes and Exit (pressing F5 and the Enter key will also load the Setup Defaults).
Press Esc and then Enter to exit Setup.


OR

Reset the boot order to the default settings
Use the following steps to reset the boot order to the default settings:
Turn on or restart the computer.
While the display is blank, press the F10 key to enter the BIOS settings menu.
Press the F9 key to reset the BIOS to default settings.
Press the F10 to save the changes and exit the BIOS settings menu.


this is the default boot settings:

Floppy diskette drive
Optical drive (DVD, CD-ROM)
Hard drive
USB device
Network adapter

HP Notebook PCs - Repairing or Reinstalling The Operating System from the HP support site.
HP Notebook PCs - Installing Software and Drivers Using the Driver and Application Recovery Discs in Windows XP

According to HP, the bios should show the HD as "primary master" and the optical drive as "secondary master". does it? does it recognize it at all?

May just be a bad CD/DVD drive...

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May just be a bad CD/DVD drive...

Possible idea to try.

A colleague of mine had a similar problem. Came to me & no matter what I tried, it would not boot.

Took out HD & put in in an external box, connected to my system - bingo, came up as drive T.

I then formated it & installed windows XP Pro.

Checked all settings in laptop - no problems.

Booted up sweetly. If you have or know someone with an external 2.5 box, try it. you have nothing to lose.

{edit} Also, if it works & it is a fairly large drive, partition it into 2 drives & keep all data on D, that way if C plays up, you won't lose your files. {edit}

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digesting the ideas and we'll try 'em.

Let you know later

Thanks !!

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Question: Did the CD ask 'Press any key to boot from CD' and if it did did you press any key?

Windows' install CDs have a feature that if they see OS installed in hard drive the CD will not boot by default. (I'm not sure how the check works - if it's only a byte or two it could see random data as OS.)

-Juha

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Juha - not it didn't ask.

We fixed it. Simply reloaded the factory default BIOS setting, which as far as we could see didn't make any changes to the BIOS, but after saving the 'changes' it exited and started to boot from my original winCD just fine. Something must have been messed up inside the BIOS that isn't shown on the screen.

Tonight windows goes on, tomorrow ubuntu goes back on.

Thanks everyone

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fixed

reloaded the default BOIS settings

go figure

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Who'd have figured it?? Why that's "Urs Echternacht" in the forth post of the thread....that's who...

good to hear.