My HP Pavilion dv8000 laptop won't read the hard drive

[kronzee21]

My hp pavilion dv8000 laptop wont read the hard drive?
its the weirdest thing, one day it was fine and the next its not. when i try to start up windows it says a file is missing so i though maybe its time to reinstall the operating system, its XP home edition. i went ahead and started it up but it eventually it said something like it didn't read any hard drives on the computer and said to make sure there installed properly, so i eventually did that and still nothing. my question is, could there be something wrong with the hard drive itself? or something not right with the computer? please explain



just to clarify, all it did was boot from the xp cd and when it came to the part were it has to load from the hard drive that's when the message poped up.

 

[strategic]

You could try checking the connections, but I would say your Hdd needs replacing.
If I recall, this model is about 3-4 years old?

 

[LookinAround]

The "No hard drive" found problem upon a reinstall if often a problem when you have a SATA drive (which aren't included on the XP disk). So Windows can't talk to the disk controllers

YOu can:
> Check BIOS. You can sometimes out the SATA drive into IDE mode

Though in the long run you'll want to get the SATA drivers installed on your machine. try looking at How Do I Install Windows XP On A SATA Hard Drive

 

[strategic]

Hmm, good call LookinAround. I overlooked that one, I figured the Windows XP restore disk shipped with the PC would have the proper drivers on it... But then the problem did start before re-installing Windows.

 

[kronzee21]

The "No hard drive" found problem upon a reinstall if often a problem when you have a SATA drive (which aren't included on the XP disk). So Windows can't talk to the disk controllers

YOu can:
> Check BIOS. You can sometimes out the SATA drive into IDE mode

Though in the long run you'll want to get the SATA drivers installed on your machine. try looking at [How Do I Install Windows XP On A SATA Hard Drive[/URL]

 

[kronzee21]

The "No hard drive" found problem upon a reinstall if often a problem when you have a SATA drive (which aren't included on the XP disk). So Windows can't talk to the disk controllers

YOu can:
> Check BIOS. You can sometimes out the SATA drive into IDE mode

Though in the long run you'll want to get the SATA drivers installed on your machine. try looking at [How Do I Install Windows XP On A SATA Hard Drive[/URL]

thanks, that makes alot of sense, only problem is I dont have a floppy drive, can i use a usb instead?

 

[LookinAround]

To my knowledge you either
1) Have to get a USB floppy about (you should find them for about $20-$30USD) or
2) Or by slipstreaming a new CD see How To Slipstream SATA Drivers Into XP CD

 

[kronzee21]

To my knowledge you either
1) Have to get a USB floppy about (you should find them for about $20-$30USD) or
2) Or by slipstreaming a new CD seeHow To Slipstream SATA Drivers Into XP CD[/URL]

thanks!