Hello in the house, please, can anyone tell me what to do to this newly shipped-in HP pv6000 laptop. It was shipped in with winxp pro insalled on it. But later, somebody now upgraded the winxp pro with Vista and the owner was not satisfy with the performance of Vista and requested for the removal of Vista from the system. So, I attempted to use winxp pro CD to boot the system so that I can have the lappy formatted and install fresh winxp. But if I attempt to boot the system with winxp Cd, it will run for few minutes and when it is about to display PRESS F8 TO AGREE WITH THE TERMS AND CONDITIONS OF THE WINDOWS YOU ARE TRYING TO INSTALL, then a message will appear saying that windows did not detect any Hard Drive from my system. But if you leave the system to boot from the Hard Drive, it will run from it a display windows logo but only that that windows is having problem and cannot boot to desktop successfully.

Another funny thing, if you boot the loppy with win98 bootable disk, the lappy will allow you to partition and format the Hard Drive with win98 and even install win98se or winme on it. And if I attemp to upgrade the winme with winxp pro through windows, it will be running and if it restart for the first time and start running again, it will just display a message like "Windows has prevented your computer from continuing because of the following reasons: your computer might have Virus, remove any newly installed Hard Drive, you might not have hard drive connected to your system or you have made wrong setting for your Hard Drive", immediately windows logo happear at startup.

Please any help on this.

hmmm,
From what you've explained, the windows vista is still installed on the machine u are trying to recover, and from my analysis, i think your problem has to do with the "FILE SYSTEM" that has been formatted on the harddisk. u mentioned using windows 98 to try and recover it. good. but the vista definately formatted the harddisk using NTFS file system. so there is no way windows 98 will detect the hard disk, but i guess windows xp should hav detected it because it can read ntfs file partitions aswell!?!? i wonder why. anyway, i think theres a way around this, lets try n get it back to

Now since its vista on the system currently, u'll need to trace ur steps back. Go get your windows vista cd, and run d setup, go through the norms, u'll get to a part wer u can specify which partition to install on, and the type of file system to use just like dat of winxp. its a bit tricky but i guess u can find ur way around, U have to choose FAT32 file system and format it. now after formatting the drive, windows will either ask u to continue, or it mite start to install imediately. well since we hav accomplished our file format, u can safely abort or restart.

now dat the disk partition is Fat32, u can install any operating system, except win3.1 lol.


DISCLAIMER>

If for any reason during this operation ur harddisk crashes or it explodes and u die, i will not be held liable for it OKAYYY!!!!!

the xp pro is not seeing the hard drive because of the sata driver that vista installs,u have to integrate the vista driver with ur xp operatin sys for it to work.that was what i did to get mine to work.Peace

Wao sixbon200! One more thing. Don't forget I said that I can delete the existing partition on the Hard Drive and also format it using win98 bootable disk. I can also install win98 or Me on it now and it will run fine. Only that most of the device drivers will not be installed. But I will keep receiving "no Hard Drive detected" message if I attempt to boot the system with xp. whereas I can boot the system with win98 without receiving "no hard Drive Detection" message.

Even I have install winme on the lappy now and it is still running fine, only that I can't install xp on it.

Wao Sixbon2000! But one more thing.

Don't forget I said that I can use win98 bootable disk to boot the lappy, delete the existing partition on the hard Drive, re-create the partition with FAT 32 File System, and also format it. But I cannot boot the lappy with winxp without receiving the message "no Hard Drive detected".

Though I have winMe installed on it right now after I've re-partitioned it, and also formated it with win98. But if I try to upgrade the winMe I have on it right now (from MY COMPUTER ) to Winxp pro, it will run like say, 10 minutes and restart for the first time. And if it state booting again (immediatly it display win xp logo) it will now display error message I mentioned in the first post above.

try installing third party drivers from ur hard drive when running xp pr.that might work

Sixbon2000, what do you mean by "I have to integrate the Vista driver with my xp operating system for it to work" in your formal post? Please, explain to me.

Vista's definitely hard drive using the NTFS file system. So there is no Windows 98 will detect the hard way, but I guess Windows XP hepatitis A virus detection, because it can read NTFS partitions and files.