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Working hard drive, but "Operating System Not Found". How to make visible to BIOS?

Working hard drive, but "Operating System Not Found". How to make visible to BIOS?

I've recently been handed a 6 year old laptop (HP Pavilion ZD7000) that I want to repurpose for a family member to use. It was boxed and unused when it was given to me.

Asked by: Guest | Views: 300
Total answers/comments: 4
Guest [Entry]

"Are there any diagnostics on the laptop. Some like the Lenovo and Dell have a minimal diagnostic in the BIOS and then a diagnostic partition on the drive ( not any help if drive is bad) On a Dell you press F12 and on an IBM/Lenovo there is a dedicated button.

If there is a diagnostic, you can run that. Failing that, you can get a 2.5"" to IDE adapter or 2.5 to USB at most computer shops and connect to a working desktop system and run a diagnostic on the drive. Some drive vendors like Western Digital and Seagate also have their own diagnostics. They only work with their drives I belive. I am sure there are lots of other tools for this but if you have a known good PC and attach the drive, you can eliminate all the laptop hardware in one test"
Guest [Entry]

"You might be fighting an old worn-out cable. Old IDE cables can be flakey. Try disconnecting it from the motherboard and drive, and then plugging it back in again. This will sometimes improve the contact on the signal pins. If this doesn't work, try swapping out your IDE cable for a new one.

How long is your IDE cable? I've seen IDE cables that are longer than what is ""acceptable"". Too long of an IDE cable can introduce signal integrity and timing issues."
Guest [Entry]

you might try deleting all the partitians on the drive, recreate and do a full format. If this doesn't work, it could be something with the IDE connector on the motherboard.
Guest [Entry]

"Some HP machines have been setup with a hardware limitation of how big of a hard drive that can be installed. I have a HP Compaq Business Notebook nx9100 which has a physical limitation of less than 80 gigs of harddrive. I know this because I tried installing both a PATA 160gig and a PATA 100 gig harddrive which both did the exact same thing that you described. If the hard drive that you're moving from one laptop to another happens to be larger than that phsyical limitation then this could be the cause of your problem.

Hope this helps and good luck."