Help/My Intor

Hello Newbie here with a serious pain in the *** problem.

I'm trying to fix my gf's mom's computer and it's a 2002 compaq with a 40GB Quantum Fireball HD.

So here's the deal, I erased all the data on the hard drive cause it was running slow and just bogged down with all sorts unnecessary software. I didn't format it because after I earsed all the data on the drive, it started giving me a operating system not found error, which was good cause there wasn't one on there. So I put the XP SP2 Installation disc into the CD drive and I tried to boot from that and that didn't work. I just kept getting the Operating System Not Found error. So I pulled it out and placed it into my own personal computer, made it slave to my master drive and it wasn't showing up in the boot screen. In windows, I was able to format the drive as a primary drive. Once that finish, I took out my master drive and made the trouble drive my sole hard drive and I was able to install windows XP SP2 on to the hard drive with no problem. Like smooth sailing. Then after everything was a go, I took the drive out put it back into the computer and now it's throwing Disk Read Error; Press Ctrl+Alt+Del. I'm at a loss.

I'm thinking it's a bad motherboard. The hard drive works perfectly fine in my computer and no errors come up.

Thanks for any help

 

On the Compaq computer try hitting F10 (or possibly F1) at the splash screen to get into BIOS/Setup and check the boot order to make sure it is set to boot from CD first.

The XP you installed on the HD probably won't work on her computer because the hardware is too different. After you have double checked the boot order try the install CD again to see if it boots and recognizes the drive.

 

You may also be able to get the drivers from the site and try to create a slipstream boot cd ... LOL ... i know ... what the heck am i talking about, right ... LOL, i just learned about it myself ... when a manufacturer provides reinstall disks for your computer, there are usually more than just windows files on the disk even though it says only windows ... there are cd drivers (which is what it sounds like you need) and hard drive static drivers (which is what i needed) and raid drivers and many others that are mixed right in with the windows standard drivers (specifically for your system) ... so, if you can contact Compaq/HP, they may be able to send you a new cd ...

If you're brave and willing to try slipstreaming ... here's the link that i'm investigating ... http://weblogs.asp.net/jkey/archive/2005/08/28/423901.aspx ... haven't tried it yet, but sounds interesting