BIOS sees HD but not XP Proff

Melville High School · External Since: Jul 24, 2009 Posts: 4

Hello,

I posted this on Dell's Forum but no answer. I Google and searched the Dell
Tech Docs but it only says after replacing a HD to reinstall the OS from a
CD.

This is my time to own a laptop. Dell Latitude D600. About 5 yrs old.

How did you resolve this problem?

It came with a wiped 20G HD / Killdisk with no partitions. Booted from XP
Proff CD but XP Proff does not see the hard drive. BIOS F2 setup sees it as
a 20G HD.

Tested the Dell Latitude D600 with my neighbor's 20G HD. It boots up fine.

Is there a procedure that is the first one before installing XP ? Dell has
a Drivers Install Disc to create partitiions and format a new hard drive ?

Thanks from New Orleans

1PW · External Since: May 22, 2009 Posts: 4

Melville High School wrote:
> Hello,
>
> I posted this on Dell's Forum but no answer. I Google and searched the
> Dell Tech Docs but it only says after replacing a HD to reinstall the OS
> from a CD.
>
> This is my time to own a laptop. Dell Latitude D600. About 5 yrs old.
>
> How did you resolve this problem?
>
> It came with a wiped 20G HD / Killdisk with no partitions. Booted from
> XP Proff CD but XP Proff does not see the hard drive. BIOS F2 setup
> sees it as a 20G HD.
>
> Tested the Dell Latitude D600 with my neighbor's 20G HD. It boots up fine.
>
> Is there a procedure that is the first one before installing XP ? Dell
> has a Drivers Install Disc to create partitiions and format a new hard
> drive ?
>
> Thanks from New Orleans

Ask your neighbor to please burn a bootable utility CD that may then
be booted from your laptop for the purposes of creating a partition on
your 20GB HDD. Google for the one you like.

Pete
--
1PW @?6A62?FEH9:DE=6o2@=]4@> [r4o7t]

Don Phillipson · External Since: Jan 09, 2009 Posts: 37

"Melville High School" <MelvilleHighSchool.TakeThisOut@live.com> wrote in message
news:ACD1ACAB-96B5-42E6-8D66-77E1EB735153@microsoft.com...

> It came with a wiped 20G HD / Killdisk with no partitions. Booted from XP
> Proff CD but XP Proff does not see the hard drive. BIOS F2 setup sees it
as
> a 20G HD.

This is normal when the HDD has been wiped clean. You need first to
partition and format it (NTFS preferrred.) Full OS installation routines
usually automate this.

--
Don Phillipson
Carlsbad Springs
(Ottawa, Canada)

Paul · External Since: Dec 06, 2006 Posts: 353

1PW wrote:
> Melville High School wrote:
>> Hello,
>>
>> I posted this on Dell's Forum but no answer. I Google and searched the
>> Dell Tech Docs but it only says after replacing a HD to reinstall the OS
>> from a CD.
>>
>> This is my time to own a laptop. Dell Latitude D600. About 5 yrs old.
>>
>> How did you resolve this problem?
>>
>> It came with a wiped 20G HD / Killdisk with no partitions. Booted from
>> XP Proff CD but XP Proff does not see the hard drive. BIOS F2 setup
>> sees it as a 20G HD.
>>
>> Tested the Dell Latitude D600 with my neighbor's 20G HD. It boots up fine.
>>
>> Is there a procedure that is the first one before installing XP ? Dell
>> has a Drivers Install Disc to create partitiions and format a new hard
>> drive ?
>>
>> Thanks from New Orleans
>
> Ask your neighbor to please burn a bootable utility CD that may then
> be booted from your laptop for the purposes of creating a partition on
> your 20GB HDD. Google for the one you like.
>
> Pete

As long as the 20GB drive is the only drive in the laptop, and
it is known to be empty, you can use DBAN to erase it so it is
clean and ready for WinXP.

http://www.dban.org/download

http://prdownloads.sourceforge.net/dban/dban-1.0.7_i386.iso?download

That is a 2MB download, a bit bigger than a floppy diskette. The
dban-1.0.7_i386.iso is an ISO9660 file, and a program like Nero
knows how to convert that to a bootable CD. There are other
CD burning programs that know how to do that as well.

Use the Quick Erase option, once in there. You have to be
careful with DBAN, because it can erase *all* connected drives.

The Windows installer CD should do the job for you. If it
still refuses, there is a list of software here that can
handle partitioning.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_disk_partitioning_software

Paul

Melville High School · External Since: Jul 24, 2009 Posts: 4

The problem was a bad HD which the Tech booted with Linux U... something
from a flash drive and claimed it was good but the XP Install CD would not
see the HD but testing with 2 more HD's , they both worked, so the bad HD
will be returned for a replacement Monday

Thank you for the quick response.

Regards from the French Quarter

The South has had its full share of illusions.

Melville High School · External Since: Jul 24, 2009 Posts: 4

Thank you for the quick response.

Regards from the French Quarter

The South has had its full share of illusions.

Melville High School · External Since: Jul 24, 2009 Posts: 4

Dban looks good and also Killdisk. Thank you for the quick response.

Regards from the French Quarter

The South has had its full share of illusions.