Replaced a hardrive and cant boot from CD

[the_big_mac]

Pulling my hair out here!

Ive had a harddrive failure and have replaced the hardrive (like for like) and am now trying to reload windows, but it just will not boot from CD.

I've set the bios to boot from CD. Ive tried both an original XP disc and the acer recovery system disc that came with the laptop. But the drive doesnt even spin or light up. Its as if its not there. I had to get the disc's in by pushing the emergancy release button as it wont open when pressing the usual eject button.

Its an acer 1350. The hardrive was an IDE 30g jobby, and its been replaced with a 120g IDE drive.

It will go through the boot proccess but seems to just find the hardrive and then tells me there is no operating system. At no point will it look for the disc.

Am i missing out something painfully obvious or is there something wrong with the CD drive?

Thanks in advance for putting me out my misery!

[Bobinovich]

As it's a laptop it could be that the optical drive is not seated correctly. Most of these are removable & usually have a single screw accessible from the base which allows the drive to be removed. If you undo the screw, slide the drive out and then put it back in (firmly but not slammed!) then re-fit the screw you may find it recognises the drive once again.

Other than that you can either get an external USB drive, or I may have a suitable internal drive from an old duff laptop which may do the job (or Ebay's good for replacements too!).

[EDDIE]

Well first thing to check would be the jumper settings on the new hardrive to make sure they are correct to the same setting on your old hard drive.
If u are using a "recorvery disk which is an image " i cant see that working because when the image goes onto the hardrive the new hardrive must be identical in size to the last byte to ure old hardrive.U need to use an original operating system disk to reload windows from scrach on a new hardrive not a recovery disk?

U have to be mega careful with computers that come with only a recovery disk if u change the hard drive or partition it the recovery disk is then useless u have to make a new image

[jazzyr1]

Well first thing to check would be the jumper settings on the new hardrive to make sure they are correct to the same setting on your old hard drive.
If u are using a "recorvery disk which is an image " i cant see that working because when the image goes onto the hardrive the new hardrive must be identical in size to the last byte to ure old hardrive.U need to use an original operating system disk to reload windows from scrach on a new hardrive not a recovery disk?

U have to be mega careful with computers that come with only a recovery disk if u change the hard drive or partition it the recovery disk is then useless u have to make a new image

eddie ,i have done this with machines without any hassle,i have replaced harddrives 3/4 times ,all diffo sizes and used the supplied recovery disc.

[dx100uk]

recovery discs are not hdd images, never fit that size of info on a disc

i'd plumb for the dvd drive being misseated or faulty

see if you can borrow an external cd drive

or p'haps the lappy can be set to boot from a penstick and install the operating system from there?

dx

[M R]

Sounds like the DVD\CD Drive is not hooked up proper. Re-seat IDE Cables....... Boot into the Bios and make sure it's showing up in there, the option to boot from it will be there even tho you don't have 1. (I think).......

I would un-hook any other drives bar the new 1 and dvd, save any confusion.

If still can't do it

IIRC, i believe that you can boot into the windows setup without even having a hard disk hooked up (certianly can with a win 98 boot disc)..........so could try it without the hd and see if it boots from dvd....then you'll know you have a jumper issue or something else......

[dx100uk]

as its a laptop i doubt these issues are relevent sadly
good point for desktop ot towers though.

dx

[M R]

Oh, kind of a vital point i seem to have missed

Sorry for the confusion

[EDDIE]

recovery discs are not hdd images, never fit that size of info on a disc

i'd plumb for the dvd drive being misseated or faulty

see if you can borrow an external cd drive

or p'haps the lappy can be set to boot from a penstick and install the operating system from there?

dx

So whats the difference between a recovery disc and a hard drivie image i though there both the same?

[the_big_mac]

Sorry folks thanks for the advice but I fixed it shortly after posting.

Bent one of the pins when installing the new drive! So bent it back and stuck it in and all was well.

Very nearly had the whole back of the laptop off too

[dx100uk]

So whats the difference between a recovery disc and a hard drivie image i though there both the same?

no far far from it.

an image is just that [photo..shapshot], it takes all the info [infact its the whole partition]!from the HDD, which ofcourse is certainly more than a CDR@700Mb or a DVD@4.7Gb. so the disc cant be an image as most HDD's are bigger than that!

typically a recovery disc will contain a branded version of the operating system with a customised setup to include the drivers needed for THAT PC/lappy. hence why recovery discs for one brand/model dont work on another brand/model, or even a diff model of the same brand.

that is also why the windows [microsoft] OS disc does not include every driver you might need for the pc/lappy you are wanting to get going.


dx

[dx100uk]

Oh, kind of a vital point i seem to have missed

Sorry for the confusion

well no, in a way thats what i was thinking, one of the pins is bent, your idea of checking the leads was sort of spot on...always check connections!

good minds

dx