Need Help formatting my laptop

[DarthShady]

First, some Information.

The laptop is currently running Vista Home and has the HP Backup and Recovery software installed. The Problem is that the laptop is too weak to run Vista properly, and is way too unstable to be useful.

I have a business trip coming up soon, so I'll need the laptop to be in a usable condition, Vista is giving me way too many problems right now. And I can't afford it crashing on me, while I'm away from my PC. I've tried formatting it myself, but I get a "Hard drive not detected error". Frankly my knowledge is limited.(I've formatted my PC and reinstalled the OS, numerous times, but I have never encountered such an error.) The recovery program works fine and the laptop is usable for a week or two before the problems start.

I want to get rid of Vista and install XP, but I have no idea how to bypass the error.
Can you guys help?

I'll provide more information, if necessary.

Thanks.

[Braedley]

Pop out the drive and connect to another computer, delete all partitions (unless you want your recovery partition, but I'd just as soon ask HP for a proper disk, they pretty much have to give one to you), and then try installing windows. That'd be the way I'd do it if I were encountering your problems. Also, if you don't nuke the recovery partition, you may still face the same problem you're currently having.

FYI, if it's not a SATA drive, you may have to go out an buy a special adapter cable that allows you to plug the drive into a USB port.

[DarthShady]

Thanks for the advice.

But I decided it's best handled by professionals, so I took it to a friends shop. Thanks anyway.

[charlemagne]

"Hard drive not detected error"

Probably because it's a SATA drive and XP install discs don't come with drivers for that, so XP setup simply can't see the drive. You'd need to build a new XP install disc with all necessary drivers implemented, there's tools to do this with ease, like nLite. I did that a couple of weeks ago, put SP3 and drivers for stuff like my USB wifi stick on it, too, and it works like a charm.

[Braedley]

I've never had a problem installing to a SATA drive on my desktop, although the first time I did have to use the raid controller floppy in order for Windows to see the entire drive. Then again, I've only reinstalled Windows once in the past 12 months, so my memory may be faulty.

[Joviwan]

Pre-service pack install discs for XP don't have SATA drivers of nearly any kind. It was only after SP1 or SP2 started coming bundled on the discs that you didn't need to load additional software during install.

[DarthShady]

Yeah, it was the drivers. I got it back today, it's working great.

Thanks guys for your help. Now that I know this, I can fix it myself in the future.