xp pro can't find any hard drives

  • Thread starter Thread starter Mike Webb
  • Start date Start date
M

Mike Webb

I'm trying to install XP Pro onto an HP Pavilion dv9000 laptop. It had
Vista Home Premium on it with 3 logical drives - system, data and recovery.
I need a laptop with Virtual Server on it for an upcoming training session,
so want to load XP Pro on it to do this for the next few weeks, then I'll
reinstall the original OS.

Anyway, I downloaded and used a wipe-disk utility called Darik's Boot and
Nuke (DBAN) ver. 1.0.7. It took about 10 hours to do a complete wipe. On
boot up, the BIOS does it's job, but then says, as expected, that there's no
OS. Inserted my XP Pro CD and rebooted -- keep being told that it can't
find a hard-drive. BIOS tells me otherwise. Being a VISTA OEM, I have no
CD's that came with it.

What do I do now??
 
Mike - First - why did you not consider installing the Virtual Server, or
Virtual PC, in conjuntion with Vista?

Second: You "Nuked" the drive - a process recommeded when discarding HDs to
remove "everything" from the HD - note the "Everything" bit!!!

Third: The everything above means there is no MBR (Master boot record) on
the drive - do a "fix MBR".

Fourth : Too late for you, but laptop owners should consider using HP's
utility for copying the restore partition to removeable media (CD/DVD) - the
utility also provides for deleting the partition and removing the MBR
modificataion about "Hit F11 to restore....".
 
are you booting from hard drive first in the bios? is the bios telling you
there is no hard drive oris xp set up saying that. what exactly is it saying?
sorry need more info.
 
1. VS2005R2 won't install on Vista Home Premium; the OS came with the
notebook.

2. I did a "nuke" as the only means I could think of to get rid of Vista.

3. Certainly a BIG error on my part.

4. I thought of that, but it's brand new - nothing done with it. I have a
CD called "Windows Anytime Upgrade". I used it thinking it would let me
upgrade to Ultimate so I could then run VS2005R2, but -- after about 3
hours -- all it did was reinstall Vista. So, I took that to mean I was able
to recover to the "as-bought" state once I was done with this. I may, as
you imply, greatly regret this.

I just got done with a chat session with an HP tech through their website.
She told me to disable SATA in the BIOS to do what I want. Did so and am
now able to proceed with the install of XP Pro. It gave me the choice of 2
drives (logical, I assume) to install onto. Maybe I didn't destroy the MBR
after all.

Mike
 
i have used DBAN many times and not had a problem installing new os. there is
no difference when you buy a new hard drive. the thing is completly clean.
something else is going on. and yes it is too late for the why didnt you's.
sorry dont mean to be a jerk!
 
Understood.

dbagdanoff said:
i have used DBAN many times and not had a problem installing new os. there
is
no difference when you buy a new hard drive. the thing is completly clean.
something else is going on. and yes it is too late for the why didnt
you's.
sorry dont mean to be a jerk!
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