Hard drive installation problem

My Dell E1505 laptop hard drive has went on vacation. Purchased a Seagate 250gb sata hard drive, but when I insert the XP disc, my cd rom spins up, and then I get the message, NTLDR missing. Unable to format, thus unable to install XP, thus I have a Dell E1505 fishing sinker. Any help would be much appreciated.

 

That's the first thing that I did, changed the boot order to CD/DVD/CD-RW Drive. I wonder if this computer can support a 250gb hard drive? I've ran diagnostics until I'm blue in the face, but they always come up passed. When I insert the XP CD I now get a press any key to boot from cd, but nothing happens when I press any keys except a loud beep. Pressing Ctrt/Alt/Del to restart, I then get a NNTLDR missing. I know that the keyboard functions because I use it running the diagnostics. Thanks for responding, appreciate all the help I can get solving this problem... BiggsAFB

 

Some larger drives (320+GB) listed on Amazon for your machine.

 

This XP disc came with the laptop when I purchased it, also the software containing the drivers and utilities. Have I used it before, no! Never had it out of the package before installing this new Seagate hard drive. Could this be a propriety thing with Dell? Originally it had a 120gb Samsung hard drive, so I figured if I have to get a new one, I might as well get a larger one. Did I figure wrong? Wouldn't be the first time when it comes to working on computers. Never had this problem repairing desktops, but this laptop is a whole different ballgame. I sure appreciate your help tho, both of you..... BiggsAFB said that!

 

There's a hidden partition on the original drive for system recovery, the Dell XP CD is just a slightly modified 'normal' XP CD.

Does your XP CD have a Service Pack marked on it?

Can you find the System Tag, it should be on a Dell sticker and it'll allow us to check exactly what was shipped in your laptop. It seems there were 2 chipsets (different motherboards) in that model, the earlier version may not support drives larger than 120GB

 

Kestrel and Satrow, I appreciate your efforts, but the original hhd is past the point of recovering anything off of it, sorry. The BIOS version on this laptop is A09 (09/29/2006) I originally went with a Western Digital 250gb, but after so many problems trying to format it, I ran the Dell diagnostic program and it said that the hdd had bad sectors, so I returned it to Best Buy and exchanged it for a Seagate. Wasted my gas I think, but at least the diagnostic programs tells me that this hdd is A OK. I'll keep plugging along with help from you good people, and perhaps I'll stumble upon something that will solve it.... BiggsAFB said that!

 

The only thing I ever found that was cheap, was a Bible in a motel, and needless to say, I walked off without paying for it. Returned it on my next trip through.rolleyes