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    Clueless?????? Need help

    Discussion in 'HP' started by mexmob, Nov 21, 2007.

  1. mexmob

    mexmob Newbie

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    Well, i had forgotten my BIOS pw for my hp compaq nw8440. So i went in and pulled the internal battery out to reset it.....done right? Wrong..... i wiped my drive clean then went to install Win Xp O.S. Windows did its thing setting up files, when it finished and was about to install it tells me "A hard drive disk is not installed cannot finish set-up" WTF!....So, i go buy a new HDD thinking that was the problem,nope...still the same thing,im fresh of ideas so someone there, anyone...please give me some feedback here...im desperate to get my pride and joy running again.

    HP COMPAQ NW8440 LAPTOP
     
    mexmob, Nov 21, 2007
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  2. SBR

    SBR Notebook Consultant

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    If your HDD uses SATA interface then most likely your BIOS won't detect it since windows XP doesn't have native SATA support. You need to disable SATA support in the BIOS then reboot from the XP disk to install.

    Edit: you can reenable SATA support after you install windows XP by installing a SATA driver.
     
    SBR, Nov 21, 2007
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  3. mexmob

    mexmob Newbie

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    sata???? what is that and lol where can i find it?
     
    mexmob, Nov 21, 2007
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  4. flipfire

    flipfire Moderately Boss

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    Go to your BIOS by pressing ESC or a F key on startup.. then go to the settings and it should have an option of SATA Native Support. If not then your bios doesnt support it
     
    flipfire, Nov 21, 2007
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  5. SBR

    SBR Notebook Consultant

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    SATA is a newer HDD interface, as opposed to the older IDE/PATA interface. You can tell the difference by looking at the back of the HDD at the pins. If you see two rows of round pins, then it's IDE, if you see flat pins, then it's SATA. At least, that's how my other SATA drive is.
     
    SBR, Nov 22, 2007
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