HD crashed Pl help

I am having a satellite A105 s2236 and its hard drive crashed. I got a new hard drive but when I slipped it in, it is not recognized by the laptop. I then used the recovery cd ( which comes with the laptop) but it also not able to recongnize the hard drive. I want to install Vista but I don't have the Vista CD and expecting that restore CD should install it. Am i missing something here? Do I have to buy a vista cd or restore CD can be used to install the OS. Please help....
Thanks

 

What was the old drive and what is the new drive? Brand & model numbers.

Also, are you absolutely sure the old drive crashed and was the cause of your problems? What were the symptoms that led you to that conclusion?

Is the restore CD one that came with the computer or was it one that Vista told you to burn from within the OS?

Also, have you looked around your BIOS (or any other RAID configuration setup if one exists) to see if the drive is recognized there?

 

Hi G_I_C,

More details:
Well I looked into the BIOS and it says HD none. I also restored the BIOS to default settings but nothing happened. I purchased a new hard drive and slipped it in...HD not recognized. I try to install Win XP from a retail CD but it also said that HD is not recognized.

I am having Fujitsu MHY2120BH 120GB SATA/150 5400RPM 8MB 2.5" NB HDD. I used the restore CD that came with the computer and got the following results:

Toshiba A105-S2236
Windows Vista Home Basic

This is what I get when I try to power w/o CD or DVD in the Drive.

Intel UNDI An error has occurred. ERROR: 01-0134-0000 The tool could not get HDD physical Information.

If I choose System Recovery Options I firts got to a screen with Select keyboard layout, then select an operating system to repair. It searches but nothing comes up. If I select load drivers it says insert the installation media for this device and click OK to select the driver. So I have three choices. Computer, System, and Public. What do I do?
On my own I went to some en_US folder and it does list lot of driver but exploring further results in nothing.

 

Does the computer have any RAID configuration setup? You would either be able to access it directly from the BIOS or by pressing a specified F key
immediately after the BIOS boot-up screen. If it has one, you may need to assign this new drive in these options. You may or may not have to do this step. It all depends on whether the computer has that RAID configuration options. So look for it.

In order to install XP onto a SATA driver you usuallymust insert a SATA controller driver into the Windows XP install CD. This is because native windows installer support for SATA drives wasn't included until Windows Vista.

With XP, Microsoft only identified computers by there motherboard for the purpose of reinstalling the OS. So if you had replaced the hard drive the install would still proceed. I assume they did the same thing with Vsta.

My guess to why Vista can't find the drive is that you haven't yet worked out the BIOS/ RAID configuration issue. Once you work that out, I think the Vista install should go smoothly. If it is in fact a full recovery disk.

I'm not sure what you are refering to. Is this a message within the vista recovery CD? I am not experienced in Vista, so if it is I can't really help you there. So, take this advice with a grain of salt. The System Recovery Opstions cannot repair the the OS because no OS has ever existed on the new drive. It is looking for the OS from the old drive. With regard to it asking for drivers... It may be asking for the SATA controller drivers I mentioned earlier... But I was under the impression that they were already included with Vista.

Again, remember, take this advice with a grain of salt. From my experiences this is the best I can think of. I do think the answer lyes in finding the RAID configuration options though...

EDIT: I'm still curious about this:

Also, are you absolutely sure the old drive crashed and was the cause of your problems? What were the symptoms that led you to that conclusion?

 

Well...
I got the impression that old Hard drive is dead because when I turned on the laptop with old HD in place it says "No operating system found". I googled and thought that may be HD has crashed. But now symptoms are same with old and new hard drive: No Hard drive in Bios.
How can I find the RAID option..any idea for the Toshiba model I stated...
Thanks

I googled and find this for the laptop(NO RAID config), what are my option now:
Brand:
Toshiba
Model:
Satellite A105-S2236
Processor Type:
Intel Celeron M
Processor Model:
520 (1.6GHz / 1MB L2 Cache / 533FSB )
Chipset:
ATI Radeon Xpress 200M
LCD:
15.4" Widescreen
Screen Type:
Glossy
Native Resolution:
1280 x 800 (WXGA)
Video Card:
ATI Radeon Xpress 200M
Video Memory:
128MB
S-Video Out:
Yes
HDMI Out:
No
Second Monitor Output:
VGA
SLI support:
No
Memory Maximum Amount:
up to 2GB (2 slot)
Memory Speed:
DDR2 533
Hardrive 1:
80GB 5400rpm SATA 150
Hardrive 2:
No
Hardrive 3:
No
Raid Configuration:
No
Optical Drive 1:
DVD±R/RW DL
Optical Drive 2:
No

 

If you can't find any RAID configuration within the BIOS or in a prompt following the BIOS loading I'd say the laptop is set to automatically configure it.

So if you are absolutely sure you aren't seeing it, it probably just doesn't exist for this laptop. Which would mean that isn't the issue.

I am curious about the problem with your the old drive. After receiving the error that is can't find the OS, did you attempt to reinstall Windows while the old drive was still there? It having an error doesn't necessarily mean that the old drive is toast... Do you still have the old drive? Try putting that in, and insert the recovery cd. What happens?

 

Yes. I did try to reinstall windows with the old drive. But again Bios is not recognizing it at all and showing it as Hd: None. If I use the recovery CD, I get the error mentioned above:
ERROR: 01-0134-0000 The tool could not get HDD physical Information.

 

Well... It sounds less like an issue with the hard drive itself (since that same thing is happening with both drives) and more like an issue with either the motherboard or maybe something went haywire in the BIOS. In my opinion that is.

I personally would send it off to the professionals. Or at the least call Toshiba and try to wrangle a tech support guy into giving some sort of useful diagnosis of the problem.

As far as I can think of, you have performed all the steps correctly. So the issue seems to lye deeper. I assume it is out of warranty?

 

Yes it is out of warranty...I am trying to save money for a student...

 

You may have a system board issue.

 

I agree. Only because the same thing happened with both drives.