Hi my friend gave me his computer to upgrade.. he got a new 20 gig and wanted me to back up his music and wipe both his hd that came with the pc, and the new one and upgrade to xp from 2kpro. I backed up the files and did a quick format on both disks from my xp machine. i jumpered the hard drives correctly and stuck them back into his machine and now the system wont boot, even to bios and doesnt seem to even get to the floppy boot point.

read http://www.annoyances.org/exec/forum/win95/1065771722

ive never heard of bios on the hard drive and am at a loss ast to how to restore it. i doubt they have the original restore cd and compaq/hp's site wasnt any help, i downloaded 14 files from various third party sites that were supposed to either create boot disks to restore the bios, or upgrade bios. im at a loss and this machine is my friends only source of entertainment. has anyone come across something like this before?

Hi There,
Cannot help on repair as have a slightly similar problem with s/hand compaq.
As the owner of new compaq can explain how they work,they put operating system on h/drive which becomes a drive letter ie.d.you then have to make a rescue or system restore disc from this partition,{ note you can only make one copy thats all HP will allow}so if like me you have not got original h/drive you are stuck, hp are not very helpful so you end up here.
The windows operating system is the same you do not get the disc even though you have technically purchased it with your new computer.
With hindsight the answer is simple stay clear of secondhand compaq or hp computers the support is found somewhat wanting.
Sorry i could not help but i hope this information might assist in the future purchase.
Regards, FRED.