Having a computer problem- need some help

[Grant Lamontagne]

OK, if we could get past the "Buy a Mac" or "Use Linux" comments, I have been having a problem with a computer I got over the summer.  It's an HP Pavillion model, and I rarely get "canned" machines for this reason.  It needs a new hard drive, which I got- $75 for a 250g drive.  The problem is, that it's not an HP drive, and so there's a compatibility issue.  It won't recognize the new drive, and I can't install XP Home (legitimate copy) on it as a result.  I can get a drive from HP, but that's $205 for a 160 gig drive, which doesn't make much sense to me, especially considering I can get a whole new machine for around $300.

Any suggestions or ways to beat the compatibility problem, or is this machine a waste?

Def

[supratentorial]

OK, if we could get past the "Buy a Mac" or "Use Linux" comments, I have been having a problem with a computer I got over the summer.  It's an HP Pavillion model, and I rarely get "canned" machines for this reason.  It needs a new hard drive, which I got- $75 for a 250g drive.  The problem is, that it's not an HP drive, and so there's a compatibility issue.  It won't recognize the new drive, and I can't install XP Home (legitimate copy) on it as a result.  I can get a drive from HP, but that's $205 for a 160 gig drive, which doesn't make much sense to me, especially considering I can get a whole new machine for around $300.

Any suggestions or ways to beat the compatibility problem, or is this machine a waste?

Def

That's what HP wants you to think!  Double check the connection and try running fdisk from a CD or another drive.

[Grant Lamontagne]

That's what I've been doing, and it only gets into the install before crapping out.

Def

[supratentorial]

It formats and starts installing software and then craps out?  That's a strange one.  Then it's not a problem with initialization, formatting, etc.  I wonder if the drive is getting enough juice.  Maybe send "MacTech"(sp?) a message.

[eodtech]

Use the 250GB hard drive you have as an external drive and load XP on it? With it's own external power it may work ok?

[Grant Lamontagne]

It's got juice- it's actually a fairly new Pavillion.  My parents upgraded and my guess is that somewhere along the line this machine got it's hard drive torn out and given to someone else.  Other than the 250 I bought for it, there's no hard drive.  It is also my first attempt at working with SATA drives, all the other drives I have are IDE.  And, I did have the drive tested and it is functional.

And yes, my parents upgrade a lot.  The "cast off" has an AMD 3600+ proc in it, so it's nowhere near old!

Def

[665ae]

Check the Bios settings?

[Grant Lamontagne]

Everything looks like it should be raring to go.  I think I may have to consult a pro...   

Def

[Roadie]

Try a different cable, (is it SATA or IDE?) make sure the jumper settings are correct, is it formatted in NTFS (or FAT?)? Put the drive in another computer and format and partition it in that then put it back in the HP and try installing windows again.

Roadie

[cryptrick]

Def, don't listen to HP if they are trying to flog you a Hard Drive. HP don't make Hard Drives, they usually use Seagate's, but a Hard Drive is a Hard Drive so it doesn't matter who made it and what PC its going in.

For the SATA drive which you have make sure both the data and the power cable are plugged in properly. Don't worry about Master/Slave settings as there aren't any for SATA drives. Power on the PC and immediately start pressing the Esc and F1 key (i think its the F1 key for most HP's but it could be Esc). You'll get into the BIOS and just make sure you see your Hard Drive in the BIOS. Then make sure your PC is booting from CD first then Hard Drive in the Boot Order within the BIOS. Save changes if you made any and restart.

Bung your XP disc into the CD/DVD drive and start the PC up. It should say would you like to boot from disc press any key, press a key and XP setup starts. If XP setup says there are no hard disks installed it's lieing  . it just means that your Motherboard requires SATA drivers to enable XP to see your Hard Drive. If this is the case go to hp.com and search your model number and download the SATA drivers.

Give us some more info if you don't mind. What errors if any are displayed, How far do you get into installing XP?

You'll get there Def, they can be frustrating at times, i know as I have to try and fix them everyday 

[Grant Lamontagne]

HP never told me it was a compatibility issue, I've just had similar problem with canned machines, which is why I never buy them.

I see the HD in the BIOS, and it's set up to boot in the order you said.

I don't remember how far in it gets, nor do I remember what error comes up.  It's something I've been playing with on and off for a while,but often I get royally cheesed off and stop, cause I kind of have a bad temper.  I hadn't thought of formatting it through another computer- I'll give that a shot.

I rarely encounter problems like this that I can't deal with.  I'm not certified, but I have read every A+ manual out there over the last few years, so I have a pretty good idea what I am doing and I can usually muddle through these problems.

I think I may try my XP Pro (also legitimate) in it- I have been having problems with two different computers and I was using the same CD to install on both (I have two codes).  Maybe it's a bad CD.  It is fairly new...

Def

[cryptrick]

You're knowledgeable guy, just keep having a go at it and you'll soon solve it. It could be the XP disc thats giving you some problems, depens on where/what it crashes on. It's always best to create a few copies of your XP disc or create an ISO just incase it breaks or scratches badly. Even if you think your disc is scratched, often just making a copy of it onto a blank cd will solve it.

[Grant Lamontagne]

I'll give that a shot and also try a friend's XP disc too.  I hate taking these kinds of things to the pros, because so many of them are full of crap these days it's not funny.  Much like a mechanic or vet, you never know if they are legitimate in telling you what's wrong or whether they are trying to take you for a ride.

My aunt was told she needed to pay to have her machine reformatted, and the local guy was charging $45/hour to do that kind of stuff.  I went over to find out what the problem was, and she couldn't connect to her cable modem.  The electrical storm the previous night had fried her network card, so I grabbed a spare and fixed it in twenty minutes- including the time it took to go out and get the card! 

I wish I was the kind of guy who could sleep at night charging people $45 for a $10 part and twenty minutes worth of work.

Def

[cryptrick]

I'll give that a shot and also try a friend's XP disc too.  I hate taking these kinds of things to the pros, because so many of them are full of crap these days it's not funny.  Much like a mechanic or vet, you never know if they are legitimate in telling you what's wrong or whether they are trying to take you for a ride.

My aunt was told she needed to pay to have her machine reformatted, and the local guy was charging $45/hour to do that kind of stuff.  I went over to find out what the problem was, and she couldn't connect to her cable modem.  The electrical storm the previous night had fried her network card, so I grabbed a spare and fixed it in twenty minutes- including the time it took to go out and get the card! 

I wish I was the kind of guy who could sleep at night charging people $45 for a $10 part and twenty minutes worth of work.

Def

Thats actually not a bad price in this country, but I fully understand what you're saying, It's not cool to rip people off intentially and do work that isn't needed but I'm afraid there's quite a bit of it about. UK are being ripped off as we speak, our Petrol and Diesel prices have been increased. Diesel can be found at over a £1 a litre and thats only one of three increases that are going to be done in the near future!    I'm young, trying to afford a car and new multi tools, its hard work you know 

[Mike, Lord of the Spammers!]

I'll give that a shot and also try a friend's XP disc too.  I hate taking these kinds of things to the pros, because so many of them are full of crap these days it's not funny.  Much like a mechanic or vet, you never know if they are legitimate in telling you what's wrong or whether they are trying to take you for a ride.

My aunt was told she needed to pay to have her machine reformatted, and the local guy was charging $45/hour to do that kind of stuff.  I went over to find out what the problem was, and she couldn't connect to her cable modem.  The electrical storm the previous night had fried her network card, so I grabbed a spare and fixed it in twenty minutes- including the time it took to go out and get the card! 

I wish I was the kind of guy who could sleep at night charging people $45 for a $10 part and twenty minutes worth of work.

Def

 Diesel can be found at over a £1 a litre and thats only one of three increases that are going to be done in the near future!    I'm young, trying to afford a car and new multi tools, its hard work you know 

Seriously give up on the car, your on a hiding to nothing going down that road, get a big bike instead

[cryptrick]

I've toyed with the idea of getting a bike, but i wanted a car license so I got one of those, but my insurance is very expensive considering it is a 'normal' little car. Anyway, I will perhaps go for a bike license one of these days as the bike I'm using at the moment has 24 gears and is hard work... especially uphill 

[Mike, Lord of the Spammers!]

I've toyed with the idea of getting a bike, but i wanted a car license so I got one of those, but my insurance is very expensive considering it is a 'normal' little car. Anyway, I will perhaps go for a bike license one of these days as the bike I'm using at the moment has 24 gears and is hard work... especially uphill 

I know what you mean  ;D I've gone full circle now, I cycle everyday now, apart from the danger aspect I just got sick of shelling so much of my hard earned, on mainanence, fuel insurance and taxes

[Mike, Lord of the Spammers!]

Any luck with the computer yet mate

[Grant Lamontagne]

Nope.  I just picked up my wife- I may tackle it tonight, I may not.  It's a casual thing, but I'd run out of ideas on my own and thought I'd see if anyone else had any suggestions.

Def

[Mike, Lord of the Spammers!]

Nope.  I just picked up my wife- I may tackle it tonight, I may not.  It's a casual thing, but I'd run out of ideas on my own and thought I'd see if anyone else had any suggestions.

Def

Wish I could help mate, but you know how crappie I am with all things digital

[Grant Lamontagne]

Well I don't know what I am doing so much as I am usually decent with fiddling at things.  Most of the fiddles I usually do aren't helping this thing, and the less success I have with it, the less time I have to play with it the next time before I start to get frustrated again.  I'm down to about 20 minutes on this one....

Def

[Grant Lamontagne]

I just gave it a shot again with my XP Pro disk and I have the same problem.  The error message is:

STOP: c0000221 Unknown Hard Error
\SystemRoot\System32\ntdll.dll

If that makes sense to anyone...

Def

[Grant Lamontagne]

Microsoft says:

http://support.microsoft.com/kb/314474

It seems that there's some screwy board drivers that are keeping it from installing, so theoretically, if I install XP on this drive in another computer then put the drive back in this machine, it should work, right?

Def

[cryptrick]

STOP: c0000221 Unknown Hard Error could be a few things. Have you tried a different XP disc yet, it could easily be a scatched disc and the files are getting corrupt (I've had it happen a few times). Also make sure your CD/DVD drives are jumpered correctly and show in the BIOS.

It seems that there's some screwy board drivers that are keeping it from installing, so theoretically, if I install XP on this drive in another computer then put the drive back in this machine, it should work, right?

Probably not immediately but in the end, Yes. If you install XP on another machine you will have that PC's motherboard, Sound, Chipset, Graphics etc drivers installed, not the ones on your original PC as they will have different Hardware. What will usually happen, is when you pop your HDD back into your own PC it will sometimes boot into Windows and will be missing many drivers OR it will Blue Screen and not boot into Windows. If it Blue Screens don't worry just do a Windows Repair (second 'R' option on XP disc) and it will solve it.

[Grant Lamontagne]

That was with my XP Pro CD- same problem as my XP Home CD, so I doubt that's the problem.  My drives are jumpered properly so that shouldn't be it.  Been burned by improper jumpers before so I usually keep track of that religiously.

I thought it might also have problems if I installed XP on it in a new machine, but I figured if I could get it that far, it might at least get me a new problem... and that in itself is a bit of a triumph! 

Def

[cryptrick]

Hehe Yeah its often the case. You solve one problem and another will appear just as you think its all sorted 

Where abouts in the installation does that error appear. E.g Just as Setup scans for Hard Drives, as it is transferring files, after windows is installed etc

[Mike]

Some things I ran across are .... disable Ultra DMA access on CDRWdrive and set any CD/DVD drives to cable select. Replace the possibly corrupted ntdll.dll file, it should be in C:\Windows\system32
Find one here:
http://www.dlldump.com/download-dll-files_new.php/dllfiles/N/ntdll.dll/5.1.2600.2180/download.html

Good luck,
Mike

[Grant Lamontagne]

Running it now for you....

Setup Loading Files (runs through all kinds of things, but I have faith in Colonel DeBugger to keep it straight)

Setup Starting Windows

Blue Screen.  This time I got:

"A problem has been detected and Windows has been shut down to prevent damage to your computer.

If this is the first time you've seen this stop error screen, restart your computer.  If this screen appears again, follow these steps:

Check for viruses on your computer.  Remove any newly installed hard drives or hard drive controllers.  Check your hard drive to make sure it is properly configured and terminated.  Run CHKDSK /F to check for any hard drive corruption, and then restart your computer.

Technical information:

*** STOP: 0x0000007B (0xF7A22524, 0XC0000034, 0X00000000, 0X00000000"

It's a brand new hard drive, and has been tested, so I doubt it's the problem.

Def

[Mike]

What did you try and did you do them one at a time? Can you start it in safe mode?

Mike

[cryptrick]

Running it now for you....

Setup Loading Files (runs through all kinds of things, but I have faith in Colonel DeBugger to keep it straight)

Setup Starting Windows

Blue Screen.  This time I got:

"A problem has been detected and Windows has been shut down to prevent damage to your computer.

If this is the first time you've seen this stop error screen, restart your computer.  If this screen appears again, follow these steps:

Check for viruses on your computer.  Remove any newly installed hard drives or hard drive controllers.  Check your hard drive to make sure it is properly configured and terminated.  Run CHKDSK /F to check for any hard drive corruption, and then restart your computer.

Technical information:

*** STOP: 0x0000007B (0xF7A22524, 0XC0000034, 0X00000000, 0X00000000"

It's a brand new hard drive, and has been tested, so I doubt it's the problem.

Def

That could be when Windows loads its files (remember they are going into RAM not on your HDD), it then will then search for the HDD, which is when yours seems to go kaput. This could be down to the SATA driver for your HDD. Go onto HP's website and put in your model number. Click Software and Downloads (or something like that). Click Drivers and you should see a SATA driver. Just download it and put it onto a floppy. When windows setup first appears it should say down the bottom "press F6 if you need to install...". Press F6, nothing will happen just yet, it will load the remaining files then it will read from your floppy. Select the driver and hopefully that might solve it.