No Operating System Found?

Just bought a refurb from eCost
Have done that for friends before and they were all fine
this one is not

This is what I ordered:
HP Pavilion P4 2.6GHz DVD+RW CD-RW MiniTower - Series A347x
Intel Pentium 4, 2.6GHz, 256MB DDR SDRAM, 80GB HD
Windows XP Home

Boots up to black screen (tried 2 monitors), so changed the boot up order to DVD and popped in the (10 disk) Recovery CDs that HP sent me, and this is what I got:

Repair or Reformat

I chose Repair and it gave me the following message.....

Inivalid System Disk or
Disk I/O error
Press any key to restart
Operating System Not Found

I originally attempted to boot from safe mode but when I did, I got the same black screen.
I checked all connections to and from the HD and they're all snug.

The Bios recognizes the HD as:
Primary Master: ST380012A (PM)
Primary Slave: None

and the HD is labeled as a Seagate ST380012A

any ideas?

 

If you just bought it, send it back for a working one.

 

The BIOS isn't finding an O/S. Was WinXP installed? Does that supplier expect you to format the drive and install the operating system yourself?

Boot from a floppy or CD-ROM. Can you access the hard drive? Is WinXP on it?

 

Stupid Question:
Is your IDE connection right way plugged in in disk ? Notch alligned with holes on both sides ?

Download Seagate drive diagnostic tools, and boot with those stiffies you made from their .exe downloaded...Diag the disk to see if it's OK.

 

It is plugged in correctly

I think I've decided against d/l seagate diagnostic tools because I'm afraid if I CANT fix it and then have to still send it back and they deem it's been tampered with, I'm afraid I wont get my money back. What a nightmare this has been. The guy already gave me the $$ and I paid the credit card with it. Now eCost is going to credit my card when they get the PC back, which does me and my wallet no good.

Farump
That'll teach me

 

Have you checked Seagate's site re use of their diagnostics on drives that are still under warranty?

Maxtor makes it quite plain that they expect you to run their diagnostics before you RMA the drive. Seagate may do the same.