Cant Install Windows, (No HD)

[stuartkeith]

Ok been playing with my laptop with different OS's to try out!

But Now I can stick windows back on!

I put Mandriva Linux on it and Didnt work as I wanted So I decided to put Windows XP back on!

But setup wont work as it says it cant find my Harddrive!!

I stuck the Linux disc back in to use DrakX to repartition but I cant delete the Linux partitions!

Any Ideas??
_________________

[GaryRouth]

Hi stuartkeith

Is your XP CD a full-version Windows installation CD or a "Recovery Disk"? If it's a Recovery Disk, go to your system builder's website & follow their step-by-step instructions for run the Recovery.

If it's a full-version Windows XP CD, you should be able to enter the Bios setup for your laptop, set the boot order to DVD/CD first, and boot from the XP disk - the included disk management as part of Setup should offer to delete/create partitions for your XP installation [delete the Linux partitions, create NTFS partition(s) for XP]

If this doesn't work, try some hard disk diagnostics, just to be sure the hard drive hasn't picked an inconvenient time to die. The "Ultimate Boot CD" http://www.ultimatebootcd.com/ has several diagnostics on it, and if your laptop is a Dell, you can run the Dell Diagnostics from their CD.

Best of luck
. . . Gary

[P.S. .. another tool to erase a hard drive would be to run a zero-write from the diagnostic tools of the hard drive manufacturer]

[stuartkeith]

No full verson!

I boot the cd it runs through the checks and then says "Setup is unable to continue as it cannot find any harddrives."

THE HDD is fine as Linux works fine and I can use that!

Its a SATA HDD in my Fujitsu V2060 Laptop if it makes any difference

Vista can see the partitions and can delete 2 of them but gives an error when I try to install.

I dont want to Fdisk as I have a ghost image file on the backup partition I want to restore too!

[glc]

You may need a SATA driver on a floppy disk, press F6 when prompted to load it. No floppy drive? Buy or borrow a USB floppy drive.

How about trying to restore the Ghost image from a floppy or CD boot?

[stuartkeith]

Tried that Ghost cant see the backup partition!

[GaryRouth]

Hi again

Was the CD you used when trying to re-install Windows XP Pro a Fujitsu Recovery Disk for your model? It seems like that should have had SATA drivers on it for your drive, since the SATA drive is standard. [very nice looking machine, by the way - I took a look on one of the notebook sites]

That makes me think that the Linux installaton might have complicated what the recovery disk expects to find in the MBR for the drive.

Now, my next suggestion might cause you to lose all data on the drive - but it might let you either use Ghost to restore your saved image (it might be able to "see" the partition again), or to reinstall the whole drive with your Recovery Disk. It's the old "fdisk/mbr" command (of course, without the quotes).

Alternately, when uninstalling Mandriva, is there any option to restore the MBR to it's pre-Linux state?

And, of course, if you've saved the Ghost image to removable media (like a DVD set) - you can go that route.

And if you'd be happy with just what the Recovery Disk will put back in, it seems you certainly have the option to use a zero-write with a diagnostics utility, and then run the Recovery. Full Recoveries tend to completely erase the drive anyway.

Interesting to see how this comes out.
. . . Gary

[stuartkeith]

Its a std XP Pro disc, the Ghost is 15gb so cant stick onto cd/dvd!

no recovery cd. What I will try is the Fdisk MBR option see what happens!