Bare Drive/New Recovery CD... not installing Windows Right

Discussion in 'Hardware' started by maggieboby, Jul 29, 2010.

  1. maggieboby

    maggieboby Private E-2

    I'll apologize in advance for NOT knowing this answer.. 'cause I pretty sure I SHOULD know it! :)

    Neighbor's HP DV6245US, bad HDD; ordered a new bare drive and told her to get the recovery CD directly from HP.

    Mounted/installed the drive, inserted the recovery CD. It loads, runs the recovery, etc. (Is loading Win VISTA, btw), but once it's 'done' with the CD, it auto-ejects it (not the problem) and reboots. BUT, then it has trouble... it's rebooting continually (the first time) then I tried reinstalling it again - worked on the install, but then rebooted and said it didn't install right.

    Tried ONE more time... but it still doesn't seem right... Bad recovery disk sent or did I forget to do something??

    UGH... I know this is something I should know... :banghead

    So.. thanks for helping!
     
  2. mcsmc

    mcsmc MajorGeek

    Hi maggieboby

    Have you tried doing a FULL FORMAT on the new hard disk (NOT a quick format) using the disk utility?

    For instance, if it is a Western Digital hard drive, download the WD Data Lifeguard Tools (available here at MG)

    http://majorgeeks.com/Western_Digital_Data_Lifeguard_Tools_d2855.html

    In fact, I believe WD's software works on Seagate and other hard drives as well, though I'm not sure how well it supports them outside of Windows (I've ran diagnostics on Seagate drives using it IN Windows).


    Also, I might add that Vista tends to be problematic with booting, for some reason. You should encourage your friend to get a Windows 7 upgrade (though I can understand budget constraints).

    If nothing else, perhaps you can borrow an actual Vista install DVD to try, if the format fails...
     
  3. plodr

    plodr Major Geek Super Extraordinaire

  4. maggieboby

    maggieboby Private E-2

    Thanks, mcsmc!

    The drive is a Samsung -
    So waaaay back in '99 or so, I used to do this all the time. Now I've completely forgotten how (I have passed 40 over a decade ago, so I believe it could be "age-related"! :cry
    Anyway, do 'boot disks' still exist? No floppy on the notebook. Do I make a boot CD then? I need that to do the formatting, yes? (Oh geez, I can't believe I am being so clueless here.. but I really can't remember!)

    I didn't see anything on the Samsung sight for it.

    PLEASE, correct me if I'm wrong, but if I remember this right, I have to:

    Go into the CMOS upon booting the computer...
    then do FDISK?

    Then use a boot disk (cd....)
    THEN load the windows/recovery CD from HP???

    Ugh! Sorry...never used to be this dumb...
    But thanks for the help... :)
     
  5. ErinLiz

    ErinLiz Private E-2

    I replaced the hard drive in my HP Pavilion DV4-2145DX (320 GB) with a 500GB 7200 rpm bare hard drive and am attempting to run a recovery on windows 7 64bit from recovery disks ordered directly from HP. I am on my second attempt from scratch the first try gave me an error: 'copy file fails from: D:\PRELOAD\BASE7.WIM To: C:\RM\Image\BASE7.WIM/ at 63% progress and 0mins remaining in which I would click ok to retry and it would continue to pop up hourly so I tried just letting it run overnight but woke up to the same box and still 63% progress and 0 minutes remaining. I contacted HP and they told me to try it from scratch again if it fails 3 times they will send me replacement disks(I don't think the disk is the problem since I put it in the CD drive as soon as I opened it).Nonetheless I'm trying it again I've had the error pop up once and clicked okto retry again. Am I wasting my time or being impatient? I don't understand how I could recover an OS on an empty hard drive where are the items it is trying to 'recover?'
     

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