Hi
My computer wouldn't boot, so I tried to repair, and had all sorts of errors and problems not recognising C drive, missing files and more.

In the end I gave up and reinstalled XP Home. But I could only use my laptop CD as I couldn't access the recovery partition (Just to see if I could install OS).

It installed ok, but took about 10 minutes to boot, and sometimes wouldn't boot at all after making strange noises.

i decided to buy a new SATA hard drive and order recovery disks from HP.

I have tried to boot from the recovery disks but it won't. So I booted from my laptop CD until it said setup XP, repair XP etc. then took out the laptop cd and put the recovery CD in and pressed enter to setup. then f8 to accept licence, then setup on the whole raw partition, then format as ntfs, where it sat at 0% for over an hour.

Is there something I should have done first or differently?

Computer is Compaq Presario P4 3.06Ghz, 1GB ram, DVD-RW. The new hard drive is a Hitachi 160GB SATA.

Any help greatly appreciated.

If you didn't:

You need to install SATA drivers.

Right at the beginning you will see the prompt on the bottom of the screen:

Press F6 to load drivers.

Do so.

In a few minutes you will be prompted to insert your driver media (floppy or USB drive).

The source of these drivers would be Compaq (HP).

What is the exact model? The drivers will be on their web site.

http://welcome.hp.com/country/us/en/support.html


Also verify that your motherboard is SATA II compatible or else you need to set the SATA drive's jumper to SATA I.


Also mixing CD's like you are could be problematic.

What happens when you try to boot the HP CD? Are you sure it is the proper CD?


...

Hi
I bought the DVDs from HP (well it takes you to another site from the link on the site).

When I tried the cd again this morning it booted and I started a full recovery.

The first disc installed and it rebooted then asked for the supplemental DVD and then said that it was either unreadable or not the right one for the PC.

Last night I looked on the compaq website and it said to use a hard drive the same size or larger and the one I got was 160GB, the old one was 250GB. (shame I didn't look here first). I wonder if this is the problem. If so is there a way around it?

The model is Compaq Presario SR1629UK

Hi
just to update i have got it sorted now.
there are 2 monitor connections one onboard and one PCI.
I set BIOS to the onboard one and it is now working.
thanks for your help.

Thanks for the update.

Let us know if we can help further in the future.