PC-MP30 deleted partitions. help!

I own a Sharp PC-MP30 laptop. It has the default 40 gig MHT2040AT hard drive, and my BIOS is called "PhoenixBios".

So I decided that I would like to start fresh again and wipe the hard drive, so I inserted a Windows XP Home CD, and Deleted all of the partitions.
(I guess I shouldn't have deleted the smallest FAT32 partition, which I assume was the INSTANT PLAY stuff.)
I started to install Windows XP, but it froze at 88%. My disk must have been dirty. I restarted, and tried a 2nd time, but when I get into the windows XP setup, I have 2 choices. Press R to repair, or Enter to install XP. Both options tell me "Setup did not find any hard disk drives installed".

If I run the computer without a windows xp disk in it, it tells me "Operating system not found" This isn't surprising, as I deleted all of the Partitions.

However, when I go into the BIOS, it tells me "Hard Disk Type: none"

It isn't auto-detecting my drive anymore. So then I tried changing it from AUTO to USER.

Under the CHS area, I wrote in Cylinders: 16,383, Heads: 16 & Sectors: 63 (These are the correct numbers, I got them from this link. http://www.fujitsu.com/global/services/computing/storage/hdd/archive/cmos-mh.html)

I tried putting in the LBA sectors (78,140,160) but that area was greyed out in the BIOS.

This didn't help, so I reset my entire BIOS to it's default settings, changing it back to AUTO.

I called SHARP at 1-800-237-4277, and the guy told me that I wasn't supposed to use my own Windows XP cd, but the "Sharp MP30 Recovery Disk". I could purchase that disk from him for $25 plus shipping, or I could send my computer in for them to look at for $80.

But where I get confused, is that people install new hard drives into their laptops all the time. Lets say I didn't do any of this. I instead went out and purchased a new laptop drive. I open my computer, get under the motherboard and install it correctly. It still won't show up in the BIOS, because it doesn't have any of the "Sharp MP30 Recovery Disk" files on it.

Therefor, if anybody has ever installed a new drive into their MP30, they just need to tell me what they did to solve their problem.

Please help if you can, I'll write back with more information if needed. Thanks.

 

Hmm, i dont have one of these machines but what you are saying does make sense although the prat saying that you have to use sharp recovery doesn't to be honest (trying to sell you the recoveries i guess is probably his job.)

What i've had this happen to me in the past its mainly been because i've accidently deleted files but isn't there anyway you can set HDD as primary?

If not then i suggest, using partitionsplitter and erasing the HDD, and reformating it with the same drive format (FAT32 etc etc or whatever it was) and see if that helps.

Cata

 

What do you mean by set my HDD as Primary?

and about partitionsplitter... I did a google search and found this tutorial.
http://www.maximumpc.com/article/ne...ve_for_free_without_formatting_or_losing_data

Is this what you were talking about? And if not, can you find me a tut or supply me with a link maybe?

I would really appreciate it. thank you so much.

*feel free (please) to email me? at [email protected], or msn messenger / windows live messenger at that same address.

I would really like to get this laptop working again. thanks again.

 

Hi, it looks more like hardware failure or some sort of misconfiguration. I would recommend take the harddisk out of the notebook and connect it (using adapter) to a PC. If the PC detects the harddisk I would advise to delete all partitions and partition it once more, maybe something went wrong last time. Then put it back into the notebook and try to install XP.
If the PC won't detect the harddisk then probably the harddisk is dead.