Im pretty new to working with hardware so that might explain some of this but i was just looking for some help before i give up and take it to a pro. My computer started acting funny and is pretty full of junk so i want to start from scratch. I started by backing what i want to save on an external hard drive. From the bios menu i change the boot sequence to a cd-rom. I have a maufacture disk which came with the computer so i put that in and boot from it. It goes through all the drives and does what ever it does. Then a menu comes up and asks what i want to do, repair, use the recovery console and so on. so i go to the recovery console and a message appears which says that XP does not recognize an installed hard drive. i have done nothing to my hard drive and dont understand why it wont recognize it. I have read many forums and it sounds like a pretty straight forward process to reformat the hard drive and reinstall XP. so i was just lookin for some advise anyone might have.

Hello,
I may be able to help you out with the Hard-drive reformat.
Just one question.... is your Windows XP an upgrade from Win98 ?
I will check back and hopefully be able to assist you.
Rick

Its not an upgrade it was what i had originally installed.

I was doin some searchin online and ran across a website that helped me with my problem. It is a detailed tutorial on fixing the problem with the hard drive. I still have some issues with my floppy drive but once i get that straightend out i think this will work.

http://www.windowsreinstall.com/winxppro/nohdd/indexfullpage.htm

It gives great instructions for newbs like me so if anyone is havin the same problem i would recommend checkin it out.