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Re: Compaq Armada M700 not recognising my new 40 GB toshiba Harddisk

 
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Alex_367
Advisor

Re: Compaq Armada M700 not recognising my new 40 GB toshiba Harddisk

the problem is i got a new harddisk for my laptop and want to format it inorder to install win xp on it.....i got a win98 bootdisk as you said......restarted my pc but it wouldnt reboot...it tells me to tacke out the disk and restart the pc again.....so it isnt rebooting
what i need is a Boot disk containing the FDISK.EXE and FORMAT.COM programs........i know that win98 bootdisk should contain them.............but i dont know why it is not booting with it.............any idea why????/
Omar Senussi
Honored Contributor

Re: Compaq Armada M700 not recognising my new 40 GB toshiba Harddisk

It is not booting from the Win98 disk for one of two reasons
1. There are no system tracks on the floppy.. or it is corrupt.
2. The bios is not set to boot from floppy first.
If you cannot access the bios to change this.. you're in a difficult situation!
I recommend you download the floppy for bios from the link above, or the DOS disks (6.22) disk one shouild have the files you need.
If you can keep your head whilst all around you are losing theirs... You haven't understood the situation!
Alex_367
Advisor

Re: Compaq Armada M700 not recognising my new 40 GB toshiba Harddisk

first i want to thank you OMAR for responding to my Questions......
i treid again what you said.......downloaded the bootdisk from the link you mentioned....downloaded bootdisk 98SE and DOS 6.22....problem is always the same not booting it tells me to tacke out the disk from the drive and restart...
yes i can enter BIOS,i setted it up to boot from floppy..so its not from the bios
i made also a start up dik from win XP.......it did boot from it..but the problem with this boot disk i cant format my drive cuz it doesnt contain FDISK.....so any idea what should i do next!!!!!!!!
Omar Senussi
Honored Contributor

Re: Compaq Armada M700 not recognising my new 40 GB toshiba Harddisk

Hmmm..! You are REALLY having fun here!
Why the devil won't it boot from any of the other disks?? Do any of them contain the format and fdisk? How did you download and create these disks? If you have a second computer, you could try slaving your Tosh drive to this machine anfd formatting it this way.
If you have a disk cleaning kit, try cleaning your floppy drive.. might be some muck preventing it from workin properly.
If you hav, or have access to a copy of partition magic, you could create the partition and format it with that (create some floppies?)
If you can keep your head whilst all around you are losing theirs... You haven't understood the situation!
Alex_367
Advisor

Re: Compaq Armada M700 not recognising my new 40 GB toshiba Harddisk

yes iam really having fun solving this problem..........LOL.....i dont think that the problem is from my floppy drive.....cuz it has booted with xp setup bootdisks...which i have downloaded them from microsoft site and made the 6 disks with the same drive......i retreid making new bootdisks from bootdisk.com...downloaded the file and packed them on the floppydisk..
i also explored the disk.files are there....
xp start disk doesnt contian FDISk nor FORMst.....but the other bootdisks that i downloaded contain them...but they dont want to boot......that is weired.........dont know wot to do.........
Omar Senussi
Honored Contributor

Re: Compaq Armada M700 not recognising my new 40 GB toshiba Harddisk

Can you test these disks elsewhere? or get a known good DOS disk from someone you know?
If you can keep your head whilst all around you are losing theirs... You haven't understood the situation!
Roger Faucher
Honored Contributor

Re: Compaq Armada M700 not recognising my new 40 GB toshiba Harddisk

Alex:

Does the BIOS Setup program give you the option of making the CDROM drive the first boot device? If you set it as such, does it boot the WINXP CD?

Roger
Make a great day!

Roger
Ronald Postma
Honored Contributor

Re: Compaq Armada M700 not recognising my new 40 GB toshiba Harddisk

Hi Alex,
I wonder why you want to format it the drive, this option is in the WinXP setup, you do not have to do anything with te drive. During XP setup, you can create the partition and it will format the partion where you install windows itself to.

The you can forget fdisk etc. You can try two things,
1. Like Roger said, search for the bootorder option in the bios and set CD-rom to first boot
2. If option 1 does not work try a Bios update, Biosupdates can also make the computer/laptop work faster, seen that a lot on Dell systems.

BTW have you checked if you HD is detected in the Bios?

HTH,
Ronald
The logic of Microsoft: "Press START to shut down the pc"
Omar Senussi
Honored Contributor

Re: Compaq Armada M700 not recognising my new 40 GB toshiba Harddisk

Ronald,
I think the problem here is that:

1. Alex appears loath to update his bios.

2. Booting seems to be a hit and miss affair with floppy, and not possible with CD. I presume that having set the floppy as first in the boot order, he will also have tried CD

3. He attempted the XP install from floppy, but once he had changed to CD portion (had to remove the floppy drive to accomodate the CD drive) it failed.

Alex, can you confirm this is correct?
Also, have you tried using a cleaning disk for your CD and floppy drives?
If you can keep your head whilst all around you are losing theirs... You haven't understood the situation!
Antoniov.
Honored Contributor

Re: Compaq Armada M700 not recognising my new 40 GB toshiba Harddisk

Alex,
I'm a bit confused and it's not clear for me how your trouble is evolved.
I try to write some working list.
- You reset your bios (to factory default I think).
- You can't boot from CD drive; as other fellows I guess you have not CD drive in boot list.
- Your Floopy Disk drive works fine becuase you booted form it 6 windows xp pro from it.
Now I guess follows items:
1) You can boot from old HD with windows 98. is it true? If yes, have you two HD, one with Win98 and other where you will install win xp? Or else you have unique HD with two partitions?
2) You can't run fdisk or it doesn't work right. I guess it's the second case. Windows xp cannot boot on same HD where is installed win98; now I'm searching the MS link about this trouble.

Alex,
answer my questions to clarify me your situation because I'm not sure what is your hardware and your software.
Don't worry, here you'll be able to find your solution :-)

Antonio Vigliotti


Antonio Maria Vigliotti