Reinstall XP Pro Compaq NX5000 "Did Not Find Any Hard Disk Drives"

Hi All,
I am trying to help a young girl with a Compaq NX5000 that her dad brought for her second hand. They told me it was 'broken' but could give no details. Last night I spent about 5 hours on it with great success. Did Windows Updates, installed MSE etc. This morning, different story.
First when I powered on black screen with 'Non-System disk or disk error replace and strike any key when ready'. Was hoping not to have to do a new OS installation but could see no other way.
Have put installation disc in, starts to work then comes to blue screen with 'Did not find any hard disk drives....'. Have researched this before coming to you and most people say to go into BIOS settings and 'disable SATA Native Support' or change 'SATA device operation to ATA instead of AHCI'. OR F10, Advanced Tab, Next, Destructive Recovery. I cannot see any of these options in the BIOS (which on this Laptop is called ROM support).
Could the XP Pro disc be the problem? Laptop was working great last night, was connected wirelessly and/or cable.
Any suggestions? Be slow with me as this is a hobby, I don't do this for work.
Thank you in advance.

 

Sounds like the hard drive is giving up the ghost. That computer is pretty old and does not support SATA so that is why it is not in the BIOS. What is the make of the hard drive.

http://h18000.www1.hp.com/products/quickspecs/11860_na/11860_na.HTML#Technical Specifications

 

Hi tgell, thanks for the reply. I can't find my screwdriver to under the cover for the hard drive. All the manual info I have says ATA. I obviously have the model and series numbers but as I mentioned this is a hobby for me, one that I love, but I am not sure where else to find the brand. Is SMART a brand or type of hard drive?

 

Forgot to mention the fan is bluin noisy. I think I am flogging a dead horse but I can't help myself. This young girl and her dad don't have a lot of money, hence why I am trying to help them.

 

SMART is not the name of the hard drive. That is something the hard drive uses to determine if it is failing or not. I wanted to know if it was something like a seagate or WD because you can create a bootable disk that will try to access the drive and perform tests on it to determine if it is failing.

You can download it here. I am not sure if it will work for your drive or not.

http://www.seagate.com/ww/v/index.j...toid=480bd20cacdec010VgnVCM100000dd04090aRCRD

You have to burn the iso file with Imgburn or some other software that can burn images. Then boot the CD and perform the tests.

Another bootable CD that has many disk tools is UBCD but that is a very large download. See Hard Disk Diagnosis Tools

http://majorgeeks.com/Ultimate_Boot_CD_d4981.html

Edit: another option if the hard drive is toast is to use Puppy Linux. It is fairly user friendly and usually works very well with older computers. It only needs to be run from a CD or a USB drive. I recommend Puppy Lucid 5.2.8.

http://puppylinux.org/main/Overview and Getting Started.htm

http://puppylinux.org/main/Download Latest Release.htm

 

THANKS again tgell.
It must be frustrating when girls like me try to do this stuff but I have 2 year old twins and playing with computers is good therapy.

I will try all of these and try and find my srewdriver !!!!!

 

Good Luck. Hope everything works out.

 

Hey tgell,

Just used the Seagate tool, every test failed so am assuming the hard drive is toast. BUGGER!! Am dowloading Puppy Linux. I have never heard of this program before but it sounds great. Am I right in assuming if I load it onto a CD or USB drive that every time she uses her computer she puts in the CD or USB drive, or once you run it is installed permanently? Sorry, last question, giving up after this.

 

Puppy actually runs in ram. So, One way to run it is to boot from the CD and then save to an attached USB drive. The other is to boot Puppy from a USB drive but I do not believe this computer will boot USB. You can force it to boot A USB by using a boot manager that boots from a CD or floppy. Does this computer have a floppy drive?

Edit: Is there an option to boot from USB in BIOS?

Edit: To make it clearer. When you finish with puppy, it will ask if you want to save. It will then save to the USB drive. It is explained better here.

http://puppylinux.org/main/How NOT to install Puppy.htm