HDD will not boot after fresh XP install

[stupidguy]

Hello All,

First post in PC problems. I have a NEC VERSA LitePad that I just picked up on Ebay. I ordered a brand new Toshiba MK2004 20gb hdd that was original to the PC. Installed hdd and ran fresh xp install formatted it with NTFS and FAT32 on two seperate accounts and rebooted XP as it normally does at the end of the install. Bios finds hdd and reports good, system will not boot. It says to install bootable media and hit any key. It does not say NTLD is missing as you normally have with a bad boot sector or corupt XP. I've ran UBCD and HDD tests fine. File system seems to be in tact as well. I've tried FIXMBR FIXBOOT and relabeling hdd, all with no result.
I've tried swapping RAM, no luck. The only thing I have found is that the original HDD had a recovery partition and was Tattoo'd so the recovery disks could only be used with this brand PC. Any help or advice would be greatly appreciated.
I did not mention that if the system reboots after install with cd as first boot device it will restart the install process and find the already installed windows OS. If changed to hdd as first boot it just says insert bootable media.
Thanks All!

[Egren71]

On Hdd's there is a flag call "active" i think that needs to be set for the bios to accept the disk as bootable. This doesn't seem to get set as part of creating partitions during the XP install. If you have software (Possibly UBCD) that allows you create partitions then run that and set the active flag.

[stupidguy]

I believe that I formatted with a partition manager and set hdd as primary and active and labeled drive as C:/ then installed without changing drive config. Did not work, but I will definetly double check. Thanks

[stupidguy]

did notice everything refers to it as hd0 partition0
does that seem correct?

[stupidguy]

Every time I load a partition manager from UBCD I get the error "InitDiskError reading partition table drive 00h sector 0error "

[Egren71]

hd0 partition0 sounds correct as partition managers count from 0 instead 1.
As far as "InitDiskError reading partition table drive 00h sector 0error " i don't know the software so i don't know the errors but it looks like there is some disagreement between XP partitions and how UBCD creates them.

[BRASS EAGLE]

Is xp the o/s for this device.ive done a few laptops and pc's thats needed new hd's and yes some have had recovery partitions on the disc and ive formated them by mistake ,and by just plain stupidity of not knowing what i was doing ,but thats how i learnt ,when i do a reinstallment i set the boot device from cd/dvd and then just let it do it,when it loads all the info to the hard drive it starts again by saying press any key to boot from cd,well ive done this before and it just goes back to the start again,what you do is after its loaded all the info and it comes up press anykey to boot from cd,just leave it and it should install by its self,i know that your problem is diffrent but thats what ive done ond it works,i use xp unattended,my friends say to me to get away from it and use lynux but iam set in my ways.i hope you get a result from someone.i do know that some of the hard drives need set up some how as ive put new ones into a caddy and my pc wont recognise it,If you ever do a reinstallment again mind and set the boot device back to the hd after you have installed the new system.

Best of luck
Jim

[stupidguy]

Thanks again,
Problem is hdd is recognized by bios in post. Then says install proper boot device or media or something along those lines. It's not acting like any other pc I've worked on. Also it's a 1.8" micro drive 50pin. It appears as though the motherboard controls the drive as it does not have a circuit board on the hdd. Maybe a bad hdd controller? I'm thinking about reflashing the bios.

[anaklangsa]

booting with usb,, N wintoflas software

[charlievarley]

have you tried a fdisk /mbr ?

[D21198071]

try use hirens boot CD first...maybe there is bad sector inside. after u use hirens boot CD choose HDD regenerator to check it first and the program will try to fix if there are bad sector....

[BRASS EAGLE]

a what ???

[BRASS EAGLE]

cheers whare and how do i get that ,will it have to be a dvd or a cd to store the data on as the pc iam trying to sort only has a cd rom not a dvd rom

[D21198071]

cheers whare and how do i get that ,will it have to be a dvd or a cd to store the data on as the pc iam trying to sort only has a cd rom not a dvd rom

for hirens boot CD of course you must burn it to CD first (CR RW needed). cannot booting from hardisk that we want to check up.

[jenggo500]

hi D21198071, I never think that you're expert in computer too except diesel engine....wonderful man