Can any computer buffs help me out.My hp pavilion desktop computer crashed.I have a window xp disc and coa but when trying to install it says unable to find hard drive.
Please could anyone give me some assistance.
Thanks Matty

Are you restarting the PC with the disc in the cd drive, I recall it needs to boot from the cd.



If you press F8 when its booting, you can get into the dos settings and force it to boot from the cd.



bleepingcomputer.com is your friend

When you turn on your computer it goes through some basic checks. The BIOS is the detection and recognition of the hardware (inputs and outputs). If BIOS doesn't detect your hard drive (excluding some server hard drives which can run on an extra BIOS and controller) then Windows won't either.

Switch on your PC. Press F1 when the HP logo comes up. This will take you into BIOS. See if BIOS will detect/see your hard drive.

at a guess its a sata hard drive, you might need some extra drivers when you install windows

Have looked in the BIOS and it sees the hard drive,where would I get the driver from or find out if I have a SATA hard driver.
Thanks Matty

Good news that BIOS sees it. It should give the model number and that'll tell us if it's a SATA drive or not. Do you know the model number of the Pavillion?

Product number is A808.uk
Thanks Matty

Damn....Your model can have either SATA or PATA!

http://h10032.www1.hp.com/ctg/Manual/c00253983.pdf

What does BIOS detect the drive as Matty?

Open the case and look at the cable IDE has a very wide cable


3 main types of hard drive IDE, SATA and foobared .

firstly does your windows xp disk have service pack 3 included, if it doesnt your fighting a losing battle - go get a updated disk

if it doesnt work then...

go into your bios and see if the hard disk controller is set to AHCI if it is change it to SATA or IDE

try windows again

if this doesnt work, set it back to AHCI (will give a performance boost) and you need to find out the make and model of your motherboard - it should be printed on it and download the drivers for your controller (or post in here and I will help you find them)

then you have 2 choices

1. copy the files you downloaded to a FLOPPY disk (yes a floppy disk - its the only thing xp will read from) and press F6 at the start of setup to install the additional drivers

2. add the files to a windows xp ISO and burn back to disk - a lot more complicated than you would think it should be - there is a program called nlite that will help you do this

hope that helps

take it to the "experts" at pcworld. then when they break it send it to me lol

Maybe it crashed because your HDD is broken? Hence why it wont reinstall?

your welcome to bring it over to me in sutterton and i'll sort it for you for a beer or 4

Thanks for your help,I have now had chance to take another look and found the following details
Hard drive PM-SAMSUNG SP0802N
BIOS Version P4VM900-SATA2 BIOS P1.10

Will I need to find a hard drive driver ?

Thanks Matty

you need to motherboard model / make

its not a hard disk driver you need, its a hard disk controller driver and thats on the motherboard

Is this
P4VM900-SATA2 BIOS P1.10
the motherboard details or do I need to look on the motherboard itself.
Sorry for the questions but I am a computer numpty.

Thanks Matty

have a look on the motherboard for a printed brand / model number - take note of any revisions too - many manufacturers release many revisions of boards

What makes you think you need to reinstall? If it's a hardware fault, reinstalling won't fix anything. If it's software, there's a good chance you (or someone else) could fix it without reinstalling.

"Crashed" is a very vague term. What exactly is it doing?

Message that come up when switched on is
Windows could not start because the following file is missing corrupt
Windows root >system32ntoskrnl.exe.
Please re-install a copy of the above file.

Does anyone have any suggestions.
Thanks Matty

Try following this video:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j69K9H87j2s

It shows you how to reinstall the ntoskrnl.exe file. It seems simple enough to me, but that could be because I understand it anyway. As long as you follow it step by step, it shouldn't be too difficult.

I've had a problem like that maybe 3 or 4 times now - every time it was caused by a dying hard disk

not saying its definatly that, but if its an older drive and you've not got a virus then its the likley cause of your problem