Reimaging a Compaq SR5123WM

Greetings, Major Geeks Forum Users! This is my first post on your site.

I am trying to reimage a friend's Compaq PC SR5123WM product page here. They had Windows Vista Home Premium, and I am trying to put either XP Pro or Vista Ultimate (heck, even 2000 Pro).

I had to take it to a local computer shop to verify my diagnosis of a faulty power supply, as I did not have an extra power supply that will support this system. After they replaced the power supply, I took it home, and it worked. However, they were not happy with all the spyware, etc., so they also wanted it reimaged. So, I yanked the HD, and connected it to my computer (via a USB 2.0 adapter) and pulled the files they needed to save (pics, etc.). I yanked the files, and dropped the extra partition (8MB) off the HD. I went ahead and removed the partitions completely, and figured that Windows will set them up for me during installation.

When I boot up the computer with the installation CD in the drive, this is what happens:
With Vista: Computer pauses after BIOS, reflects a blue screen error message for a split second (too short to see anything), then reboots. The cycle repeats...
With 2000: Computer pauses after BIOS, then goes into some Dr. DOS utility contained on the CD (I can provide more details on the program's name tonight when I get home, if you wish).
With XP: I will be trying this as well tonight, when I get home. I left the CD somewhere else, and will be picking it up.

I figured, *maybe* it has something to do with the HD or CDROM being SATA drives. I swapped them both out with IDE drives (the board has one channel). It took me a few boots to get the BIOS to recognize the HD, due to a faulty jumper setting (I ended up setting them both to Cable Select).

Now, when I boot with the CD in the Drive:
With Vista: Seemingly same error blue screen. I will try to verify this when I get home tonight.
With 2000: Non-System disc, please replace and try again.

Any initial thoughts? I just had the power supply replaced, as that's why they brought it to me in the first place. I know that the HDs and CDROMs (both SATA and IDE) are all working, as the IDE was pulled from a working machine, and the SATA set that came with the Compaq were working prior to the partition drop.

 

First thing is set bios or boot screen to boot from cd, this will let you put a os on, if you didnt burn restore disc"s before hand you might have a mess. ed

 

Sorry I don't know how to quote more than one person at a time, so I'll have to double post my responses...

The BIOS has been set appropriately. Fortunately, I have made this mistake in the past, and learned from it. Typically, this is the first thing I do when I sit down at a computer. 'Floppy, CD, HD, Network' is my order of preference. I prolly should have included this in my original post. Sorry for the oversight.

 

You're probably right about the recovery partition. Luckily enough, the Vista CD is Retail OEM, not mfr. supplied, so we are fortunate there.

 

As far as the 'Press F6 to load 3rd party RAID (SATA) drivers...' message is concerned, I've had more than one SATA drive recognized by Windows XP installations. Maybe I was just lucky? Perhaps, the image I use has a couple slip-streamed on there? I have also had many not recognized by XP. The odd thing is that Vista didn't like it either...

Here's the strange thing...

I popped the XP CD in the drive with the IDE HD & CDROM in it, and it recognized and initiated the installation. I halted it, and replaced the IDE CDROM with the SATA CDROM (just to see), and it, too recognized it. I did not put the SATA back in (mostly, b/c I'm just being lazy), but I did get XP installed fairly quickly.

Perhaps, on some odd chance, my CDs (2K and Vista) went bad on me? I surely hope not, and plan to test this in the near future...

Many thanks to all that responded! :wave I'll be sure to come back here as often as possible. I'm always glad to see a forum where folks respond quickly and aim to help others with their problems.