No Place For Hard Drive In BIOS

[loydclayton]

I have a Compaq Presario computer that is getting a Boot Disk Failure. I suspect a bad hard drive but decided to check the drive setting in the BIOS. When I boot up to the BIOS and go into the Standard CMOS Setup, only the following options are listed:

Date
Time
Drive A: 1.44 3.5 in
Drive B: None (all available choices are for another floppy)
Floppy3 Mode Support: Drive A
Video: EGA/VGA
Halt On: No Errors

That's it, there is no place to list a hard drive. May experience with computer BIOS's is that even when no hard drive is connected or if bad drive is connected, there will still be a listing in the BIOS for the hard drive. Usually it will say AUTO or NOT INSTALLED. But this BIOS has no place to list the hard drive.

The BIOS is AWARD BIOS (2A5IMG09). No date is listed.

Any ideas?

Thanks,

Loyd

[mike breck]

I think it is normal to have limited BIOS access with Compaqs.

The Compaqs have a hidden, proprietory partition on the HD which contains BIOS and system info. If that is damaged, then you can kiss the lot goodbye.

Do you have a Recovery CD for the PC? If not, you could try and get one from Compaq. That should restore the info to the HD.

HTH

[bailey]

yes, the bois on a compack is not the best to have to work with, they make them that way so you cannot do much with them, contact them for any help on that problem