brand new hardrive. no post, no bios, OS not found?

Hi there.

I have just installed a 80gb.toshiba mk8025gas hardrive into a sony vaio pcg 962a laptop. When I start the machine I get a black screen displaying "no operating system found". this is my first hd installation. I assumed the post or bios screen would pop up giving me the option to partition/reformat the hardrive.

if anyone could assist me i would be very grateful.

ive tried pressing del/ f2/ even f12 in hopes of seeing bios.. no luck
Ive also reinstalled the old hd and checked my bios settings.
it is set to boot cd/hd/usb devices.

I was assured this hd. would be compatible from the salesman however I dont know where/how to check compatibility. I've recently read online some viao hardrives arent upgradable.

800mghz.
9gb hd
windows xp is the original specs.

thanks for any advice.

 

So you pulled the old drive and installed the new one in it's place?

Did you format the drive?

 

To Kentucky, to check for the compatibility issues of your computer, visit crucial.com and they will do a free scan for you. And try formatting your new hard drive and install a fresh copy of your operating system.

 

Thanx for the advice. I fixed the problem.. I purchased the Ide to usb cable and formatted the drive via my other laptop..

installed it and it worked fine..

I guess its impossible to install a unformatted drive and use bios to format it?.

my first harddrive upgrade was successful..


NOW FOR THE NEXT STEP... i VE BEEN WORKING ON FINDING A VIDEO CONTROLLER (VGA COMPATIBLE) DRIVER.. SONY WEBSITE DOESNT EVEN LIST MY MODEL. I READ THRU GOOGLE THAT THE DRIVER SUPPLIED FOR LATER MODELS CRASHED THE WHOLE OS SYSTEM. .....IF ANYONE COULD HELP I WOULD APRECIATE

i HAVE A REGISTERED COPY OF DRIVER PROFESSINAL AND IT DOESNT EVEN SHOW tHAT I HAVE AN ISSUE W/ THIS DRIVER.

 

That's true because the BIOS is not an disk operating system. You don't format with the BIOS.

 

On your sony Model #.

Look here and here regarding the fact that pcg962a might be a manufacturer part number not the model number. PCG-FX215 might be the actual model number. The specs look about right. Video driver is from 2004 so your XP disc probably already had the lastest driver.

Did you try the autodetect option at Sony using IE browser? http://esupport.sony.com/US/perl/se...3d18e831cad2145ad&DIRECTOR=DRIVER&PRODTYPE=24

Also Belarc advisor or Everest Home Edition might give you a model number in it's system overview.

 

Hi,

BIOS (Basic I/O System) contains all the software needed to boot the machine until Windoze can take over using DOS routines so in a way I guess you would have to say it is a Disk Operating System. It does not contain any Disk Formatting routines.

Good Luck, Jim

 

Sorry but that is not correct. The BIOS, as noted, is just a basic set of instructions that allows the chipset to communicate with other I/O devices on the motherboard. It does NOT boot the machine. All it knows how to do is look for instructions on what to do next. So it looks in the CMOS and there it finds the boot drive - but all it knows how to do it look for more instructions on what to do next - so it looks in the boot sector of the drive. On the boot drive, it loads new instructions and learns how to start the OS (whether XP, Linux, or whatever) boot process - which then takes over.

The CMOS is NOT a disk operating system. It does not know how to do anything with disks and files - other than to read the boot sector to learn what to do next.

XP and later does not use DOS. DOS died with Windows Me.

 

Hi Dig,

You are correct but, no way will you get booted without the Hard Drive etc routines in the BIOS.

Jim

 

No, you seem stuck on this. First, I am not disputing a BIOS is needed to get booted - I am just saying it is not a disk operating system. The BIOS only knows how to read that the one boot sector. All those "routines" do is instruct the BIOS where to go look next for more instructions. At that point, the BIOS has not a clue about what kind, if any, disk it might encounter. It does know if it is a FAT32 or NTFS file system, CD, DVD, or a floppy, or memory stick. There is no operating system running at this point because the operating system has not yet loaded.

Yes, of course, information must be read off of the drive for the whole system to boot, but until the boot sector and next set of instructions are read, all the system knows is where to go read it.