Hi,

I have a Compaq NX 6110 laptop, in which the hard drive crashed recently. I bought a new HDD, but when I put it in the machine and turned it on to install the OS, all I got was the cursor blinking in the top left hand corner. It won't boot from the rom, (yes I did change the boot sequence and yes both the win xp cd and cd-rom are ok).


I have tried booting into safe mode... no joy! I have tried formatting the HHD on a different laptop and I did a HDD self test and it passed, so right now I'm stumped.... Can anyone help?

Thanks

How far does it get into the boot up? Have you tried booting into the cd? Have you tried the optical drive in another computer?

Hi,

Thanks for the feedback. The cd-rom worked just fine on another laptop. when you turn on the L/top, it shows the HP logo and a "Press F10 to enter setup" msg, then the cursor starts blinking in the top left hand corner.

The L/top was running Win XP Service pack 2, before the crash, it has 250mb RAM.HDD is 40gig. The problem just popped up out of the blues... I turned it off as usual in the evening, but when I tried to turn it on the following day, it gave me a msg to do a windows repair, using the "R" function from the WIN XP cd. When I tried I got message saying that windows could not find the HDD (or something like that), thats when I decided to get a new hard drive, and as they say, the rest is history!!!!!

By the way does anyone know how to get into the BIOS on this laptop? (Compaq NX 6110)!!!

Thanks

If boot up isn't getting very far & the xp disk isn't finding the finding the drive then something might be wrong with the computer itself (bios, ide controller, maybe chipset, etc; take your pick). You need to get into the bios & make sure that the boot order is correct. Without any os, putting the hard drive first is useless. It should be cd/dvd-drive & then hard drive for sure (maybe floppy & then network if you use that). Basically the hard drive should alway be last; I'm sorry if you knew that. I believe that usually you enter the bios by either hitting f2 or escape; check you manual or if you don't have it see if there is a downloadable version on compaq's website.

Are you sure that you have the master/slave & primary/secondary jumper settings correct? Also if you you can get into the bios & your drive doesn't show up then something is probably wrong with the computer since it is a new drive (unless you bought a bad drive. Can you try it in another computer?). If this is true then start with the ide cable, checking it with another computer & one from another computer in your lab top. This would be the simplest/cheapest problem. If this isn't it then I would suspect that your hardware is the problem. Can you still boot into the installation disk? If so does it recognize the drive?

Here is the manual for your Laptop.


http://mousus.inattack.ru/download/l...book%20PCs.pdf

This section in the manual tells you how to access bios.

2.1Computer Setup
Computer Setup is a system information and customization utility that can be used even when the operating system is not working or will not load. This utility includes settings that are not available in Windows.
Using Computer Setup
Information and settings in Computer Setup are accessed from the Main, Security, Advanced, or Tools menus:
1.Turn on or restart the computer. Press f10 while the F10 = ROM-Based Setup message is displayed in the lower-left corner of the screen.
❏To change the language, use the cursor control keys to navigate to the Advanced menu.
❏To view navigation information, press f1.
❏To return to the Computer Setup menu, press esc.

Hi guys,
Thanks for the info. BY the way the problem is on a Laptop, so there are no IDE cables involved. I have tried everything suggested, without much luck. The BIOS doesn't really give much info. The HDD was detected when I ran the HDD self-diagonistic prog. Now I'm getting the "Non-system disk or disk" error. The HDD works is recognised on another laptop. The DVD ROM on the faulty L/top works fine on another laptop. I don't no what else I can try. Thanks

If its not the drive, not the cable, & not your bios settings then it is either the IDE controller or the bios especially if it isn't even getting to the boot stage. Both are problems with the motherboard. Try resetting the bios to manufacturer's defaults & see if that helps [see your manual]. With these problems either way its the MB probably going bad [they don't last forever ] which can't be fixed. Interesting though that even though the drive isn't found the hdd diagnostics is finding it [if I'm reading you right] or are you trying that on another computer? How old is it? Sorry but thats all that I know to tell you & I'm not too confident on the bios setting reset .