device drivers

[silverfox1961]

Hi all.

I need someone with more it experience than I have (which is very little)

 

I got a Compaq Presario C700 laptop given to me last week. It is at least third hand and came with no discs and the hard drive with it is U/S

 

I have bought another hard drive and I tried to load my existing copy of Windows XP on it (as a temporary measure till I get another copy) but Windows couldn't see the hard drive. I am assuming this is because there are no basic drivers installed.

 

I have been on the HP website to see if I can download the drivers but they will only download to a system runnung Windows. Bit of a catch 22 situation.

 

I did manage to get Linux running but of course Linux doesn't recognise a Windows download

 

If anyone can offer me advice/help I would be most thankful

 

TheDopeyFox

[andydd]

Is the HD showing in the BIOS ?, it may well be it isnt detected there and thats the problem. You shouldnt need to install drivers for hard drivers (assuming they are a normal IDE/SATA drive).Andy

[locutus]

try page 41 of this

http://h10032.www1.hp.com/ctg/Manual/c01301275.pdf

[andydd]

try page 41 of this

http://h10032.www1.hp.com/ctg/Manual/c01301275.pdf

 

Although I think we can assume the poster has succesfully changed the drive. First step should deff be to look in the BIOS, its likley its not showing in there and therefore some changes should be made, BIOS can be entered by pressing a key on startup (it should tell you), it may be Esc or Del or one of the F keys.

 

Andy

[silverfox1961]

Hi,

Yes, changing the hard drive was relatively easy but it was just XP not recognising the drive.

I have sorted it now in a very roundabout way. I had an old copy of Windows me lying around (it did more lying around than it ever did as an OS)

I tried to install it and it recognised the drive and formatted it for me so before I continued with the install, I tried my XP disc and it worked. All up and running now.

Thanks guys

[griffzilla]

I realise that this has been solved now but....

 

The way to do this is to get the SATA drivers for the hard drive from the manufacturers website, and put them onto a floppy disk. When you run the windows installation, it asks you if you wish to load any additional drivers.

 

I had to buy an external floppy drive to do this, but hey ho, it was only a tenner.

 

This only happens with XP - newer OS's recognise SATA

[locutus]

Griff, for the more technicly minded people, you can create a "slipstream" XP CD that includes all modern sata drivers.

 

The irony is for the less technically minded you could illegally download a slipstreamed version of XP much easier than creating ones... why the heck microsoft didn't include modern sata drivers with the more modern releases of XP I'll never know.