HP lappy Windows failing to load prob.

[{{909}}]

Me mates bought me his laptop and it boots to Windows boot manager telling me a hardware or software change has caused a problem. Tells me to boot the windows CD and goto repair blah blah, tried that and before I get to the repair screen a screen pops up telling me it cant find a hard drive and it cant read the boot config data.
I presumed the HDD was broke but i put it into my desktop comp and it worked fine (found the owners porn collection too!)

Ive run the HDD test util thats in the lappys bios and that completes with no errors.

Anyone got any ideas?

[TotallyRandom]

Back up porn on to desktop
Reinstall windows job done

[{{909}}]

done step 1 already, not sure if step 2 would work as the windows cd cant even see a hdd, but its a last resort.

[TotallyRandom]

Try a full format on the desktop then stick back in laptop

[Over Carl]

I suspect the not being able to see the hdd problem is the old ahci mode sata thingy. If you can disable ahci mode in bios, do so, install, then get latest ahci mode drivers, install, then turn ahci back on.

Actually, is the xp cd the one that came with the lappy or another one - if it is the one that came with the lappy you can scrub what I've just said as it should have drivers.

[TotallyRandom]

I suspect the not being able to see the hdd problem is the old ahci mode sata thingy. If you can disable ahci mode in bios, do so, install, then get latest ahci mode drivers, install, then turn ahci back on.

Actually, is the xp cd the one that came with the lappy or another one - if it is the one that came with the lappy you can scrub what I've just said as it should have drivers.

The AHCI/ATA mode will blue screen a windows XP install with Stop : 0X0000007B
will not get in to seeing the hard drive section of the install will just blue screen before that.

[{{909}}]

cheers Over carl, i cant see it in the bios, there's virtually nothing to change at all. I don't have the original windows disk either, just a standard copy of SP3 which is partly why I dont want to reinstall unless its the only option.

[TotallyRandom]

try resting the bios on the laptop will do a re detect of drives might pick it up then might be set as off cause you removed it ect.

[tomtx500]

Restore the PC to its original condition with the HP Recovery Manager if Windows Vista is not accessible
If the PC cannot launch into Windows, it may still be possible to use the HP Recovery Manager on the hard drive to restore the computer to its original operating condition by first pressing the Power button to start the PC, and then pressing the F11 key to start the HP Recovery Manager.
NOTE: Depending on the BIOS version, your computer may display multiple prompts during startup including F11 to start System Recovery. Pressing the F11 key on a computer with an HP factory image will start System Recovery even if the prompt is not displayed.

• If the HP Recovery Manager can access the hard drive, a prompt is displayed to backup the user files before beginning the recovery. Follow any on-screen instructions.
• If the HP Recovery Manager cannot access the hard drive to fix any system errors, use the set of recovery discs to recover the hard drive to its original condition.