Shortly to be a death in the family!

[mailee]

Well I think this should be under my other posting headed 'KIDS' really. My son, bless him has decided he would re-install Windows on his 'new' computer when I say new I mean like two months old! He abandoned it halfway through the Windows setup and gave up digging his old computer out of the loft to use. He has screwed something up as when it is booted up with the Windows XP disk in it gets as far as the network with approx 32 minutes to go and hangs! The computer is an HP Pavillion and as you can guess has no floppy drive so I can't re-format the drive from here and start again. I do not have any disks with the computer as everything was on the hard drive which is now unaccessible! Has anyone any idea how I can salvage this mess before I kill him!? :evil:

 

[Sawdust]

Well I think this should be under my other posting headed 'KIDS' really. My son, bless him has decided he would re-install Windows on his 'new' computer when I say new I mean like two months old! He abandoned it halfway through the Windows setup and gave up digging his old computer out of the loft to use. He has screwed something up as when it is booted up with the Windows XP disk in it gets as far as the network with approx 32 minutes to go and hangs! The computer is an HP Pavillion and as you can guess has no floppy drive so I can't re-format the drive from here and start again. I do not have any disks with the computer as everything was on the hard drive which is now unaccessible! Has anyone any idea how I can salvage this mess before I kill him!? :evil:

If he has started re-installing Windows, then surely he must have a CD that he used and as it's a new PC it can boot from the CD and has no need for a floppy drive. Assuming it's Windows XP home or pro, then you can format the hard disc from the CD and don't need a floppy to do it.

If you need to save the data from the disc before reformatting I would recommend one of the USB to IDE interfaces and connect the hard disc to another computer.

Mike

 

[stewart]

If you have an installation cd you might need to change the bios settings so that the computer boots from the cd drive first. To get into the bios settings you usually have to press F8 during startup.

Let me know if this isn't clear enough!

Cheers

Stewart

 

[mailee]

I didnt explain clearly enough. I have the Windows XPpro disk for my computer and he is using this to re-install it. with my disk in the drive it gets as far as 29 minutes to go just after typing in the registration number and then hangs. We can't access anything from it apart from the bios. The bios is already set to boot from the CD drive well actually it is a DVD drive but that is beside the point. He must have already wiped the drive as booting from this goes back into the Windows installation setup? The hard drive is a SATA one if that is any help! Thanks guys.

 

[wizer]

sounds to me like a driver issue, you may have to call HP for their emergency recovery disks

 

[garywayne]

Hi Mailee.

Try this site:- http://www.d-a-l.com/help/

Join for free. There pretty good. They have been helping me for about three years now, on and off.

Hope this is of some use. Good luck.

 

[Sawdust]

I didnt explain clearly enough. I have the Windows XPpro disk for my computer and he is using this to re-install it. with my disk in the drive it gets as far as 29 minutes to go just after typing in the registration number and then hangs. We can't access anything from it apart from the bios. The bios is already set to boot from the CD drive well actually it is a DVD drive but that is beside the point. He must have already wiped the drive as booting from this goes back into the Windows installation setup? The hard drive is a SATA one if that is any help! Thanks guys.

Is your disc a standard XPPro disk or a badged one for your PC. If it's a badged one it might make assumptions about drivers etc, a standard one should install on any PC unless HPs have some strange quirks!

The SATA disc should not make any difference, I've just done one of my Dells and it made no difference to the install.

It does sound like a driver problem and you may need to contact HP to see if they can supply an install PC for your son's PC.

By the way, if you need advice on killing him, don't hesitate to ask!!

Cheers
Mike

 

[CHJ]

...snip... I have the Windows XPpro disk for my computer ...snip...

Unless his computer is the same model as yours and used manufactures specific drivers in its install image then this could be the problem.

(See PM)

 

[Newbie_Neil]

Hi Mailee

IIRC, with the HP Pavilion you will need their specific CD's.

Cheers
Neil

 

[Roger]

Mailee .... Work through this site:

Clean Install

Should answer all your questions

 

[aldel]

Many of these systems, Advent, Packard bell etc come with part of the installed hard drive "stolen". A back-up the original is stored in a hidden partition. To reload start up from the reload cd that came with the system. That CD will access the hidden partition and restore the system to day one.
You could also boot from a copy of Partition magic to examine the hard drive to reload.
Use another computer to download a restore CD from HP.

Just some suggestions.

 

[mailee]

Aldel, the problem is that no CD's came with the computer? Which I am told is normal these days! It looks like he may have done the same thing I did when I re-installed my wife's laptop and erased the partition that holds the backup/recovery data! Luckily I did manage to download that from the Toshiba website. Why oh why don't these people provide a copy of Windows on a CD or even the recovery disks now? My copy of Windows is a purchased one that I bought a while back and I object to having to buy another Windows disk for each computer in our home at the price they charge for them! I will try the HP website thanks and see if I can download a recovery disk of some sort to see if this will sort it out. I will also need to download drivers for all the periferals too I should imagine as they would also be on the hard drive. Oh and Sawdust, I may have some advice from you for killing him. When the computer was only two hours old he screwed it up and we had to re-install it that time too. Luckily he hadn't touched the hard drive so we managed to re install it from that. Maybe I should just nail his nads to the desk so he can look without touching, hmmm, Haven't used the framing nailer for some time. :wink: Thanks for the repies guys, I shall endevour to see if I can find anything on the site.

 

[mailee]

Well I have just been on the HP website and it is total rubbish! After chasing links back and forth to try to ge tot the recovery disk section it told me I had timed out and closed the window, Three times!! The only thing I can actually download from there are drivers for it which are not much good if there is no Windows to install them through! Looks like we might have a £600 chunk of useless plastic on our hands!! I think now is a good time to give me the advice on killing my son Mike. :twisted: The only thing I can now think of is to replace the hard drive with a new one and re-install Windows on that, unless anyone has a better solution? As for HP I am not impressed at all with the lack of support for their goods. :x

 

[SketchUp Guru]

I can't offer any advice on restoring the computer. I only just know how to turn mine on. You might feed that old HD to your son. It would keep him occupied for a bit anyway. :wink:

 

[CHJ]

Alan, have you tried aldels idea of booting from a Partition Magic Disc to see if there is another partition on the disc. Even if your son selected the option to reformat the disc during a Windows install it should not have destroyed the (Hidden?) patition with the Software Package on if there is one, only destroyed the Windows Partition..

Only doing an FDisk to delete and re-assign new partitions should do that.

If you do not have Partition Magic I am sure some one around here will help out.

 

[mailee]

I haven't tried the Partition magic disk CHJ as I don't own a copy of it. I did try copying a floppy boot disk to a CD and it didn't even recognise it was in the drive just continuing through the Windows installation and asking for the XP disk. I even tried going into the bios and making it boot from CD as first and second choice still without success. Maybe someone on here may have a copy of Partition magic I could try? It seems to be my only hope by the sound of things. Just another thought, would I be able to install a floppy drive into the machine and then I could boot from this into Dos and format and partition the drive? This is how I would normally format a hard drive. :?: Oh and Dave R I will be feeding the hard drive to him after this is sorted believe me! :evil:

 

[Sawdust]

Well I have just been on the HP website and it is total rubbish! After chasing links back and forth to try to ge tot the recovery disk section it told me I had timed out and closed the window, Three times!! The only thing I can actually download from there are drivers for it which are not much good if there is no Windows to install them through! Looks like we might have a £600 chunk of useless plastic on our hands!! I think now is a good time to give me the advice on killing my son Mike. :twisted: The only thing I can now think of is to replace the hard drive with a new one and re-install Windows on that, unless anyone has a better solution? As for HP I am not impressed at all with the lack of support for their goods. :x

You shouldn't need a new hard disc so don't rush into anything.

If you tell me the make and model number and as many details as you can find I'll have a dig around and ask around at work to see if anyone knows any quirks about HP machines.

Cheers
Mike

 

[mailee]

thanks for all your help guys but it now looks like I am getting somewhere at last. I fitted a floppy drive into the machine so I could format the drive with a boot disk. This I have done and am now in the process of installing Windows again. I will just have to hope that I can find and download all the correct drivers for it from the 'Net' if the generic ones on XP won't do. I will keep you posted as to how I get on. Thanks again for all your help guys it is priceless as usual. :wink:

 

[Michael7]

Well here's my pennys worth,

Before changing to broadband I had a dialup modem that made my pc hang at 34 mins left of an XP installation. I had to take the modem out, install XP and then put it in later before downloading updates. It could be a modem, sound card or another PCI card

Since this is my first post I'ill say that I'm in the process of making myself a bench to make furniture for the house. I've got together a table saw, mitre saw, circular saw, router, powered plane, hand plane and various other bits and pieces. I was helping my father in law the other day clearing out an old barn (future workshop) and we came across a Record 52 1/2 vice, a bit rusty but a lick of paint should sort that out.

 

[mailee]

Well it is up and running again I am glad to say. I fitted the foppy disk drive to it and used a boot disk to format and partition the drive. I noticed that the recovery disk was still on a small partition of the hard drive so left it for future use. I managed to download all the drivers from the HP site which surprised me after trying to get recovery disks from there! I then isntalled Windows XP again and this time it worked. It appears he had just put in the Windows disk and tried installing it without wiping the drive. I don't think this is a good idea if there is a chance of a virus being on the computer. Anyway I did format it all and installed the drivers and everything seems to be working fine now although I can't access the recovery partition on the hard drive so it was a waste of time leaving that partition, Oh well at least it is working now. I shan't tell him for a few days yet to let him sweat a little then he might think twice in future before wreaking havoc on it again. (Although I doubt that myself as this is the second computer he has managed to screw up and the third time in total! Thanks for all the help guys I do appreciate it.