Help with HDD replacement

[5x5air12]

Ok, emachine, t2984, Failed HDD, replaced with identical HDD that had been formatted. Hitachi Deskstar 80g. I have the restore DVD. It will load up. I can see the ghost images and it loads successfully. After all loaded, reboot, then I can see it going into a blue screen but reboots itself. I think it says missing C:windows system32 blah blah..ok. Yes I tried rebuilding the BOOTCFG. Will not work. Ok. so this is where I am at, I believe that I need to tattoo the HDD and can do this blind folded with an HP, however, emachine is being stubborn. I can not find any information on this whatsoever, its like a black hole of information to find the iso tattoo program for emachine. Can anyone in here point me in the right direction to tattoo (Flash) so that the restore disk will work properly. Yes I could reinstall a new OS but its a friend and he can't afford it right now. You know how it is when your friends come to you and need a favor, next thing you know its eating every minute of your life away.

Thanks
5x5

 

[raybay]

Your eMachine T2984 is a high failure rate motherboard... well in excess of 60% after two years... Your problem could easily be caused by the eMachine motherboard failure. Your hard drive that came in the eMachines is likely good, as is the cpu, cpu fan, modem, and optical drive. But the motherboard and power supply are of such high failure rate that you will need to test them thoroughly with a power supply tester... and trying your hard drive and other components in another board.

 

[5x5air12]

Hello raybay, I have, and I also read all the post you and some others had been discussing that particular issue. I did the diag on the ps and mobo here on the bench. It was an actual HDD failure, actuator/voice coil. I am fairly certain that I heed to flash. This is the reason that when the restore disk is used then it boots up and can't find the correct code that its failing to load. Just thought maybe there may be a tech on here that has done this on the emachine before. I guess I could reflash everything and make it think its an HP. LOL .. we could call it a WannabeHP. I did like your forum reading on the emachine though between you and uum was it..Captain..something or other.

thanks 5x5