Compaq Hard Drive Installation Problem

M

moundtown

Member
I was given a Compaq Presario 5441 desktop that runs perfectly except for the fact that it has only a 4 GB hard drive (probably the original). I am trying to replace the hard drive with a new 80 GB Seagate. After installing the new drive, placing the Seagate disc in the CDROM drive, and booting up the computer, I can not get past the Compaq startup screen. It just freezes there and does not access the Seagate disc.

I have the BIOS set to boot from the CDROM first. I do not have any of the original discs that would have come with the computer. I made a boot floppy (on another computer) from the Seagate disc but it was also ignored by the Compaq. Might there be some boot disc that I can download to solve this problem? I welcome any suggestions.

Thanks
 
How old is the board in the system, open it up and have a look for the make and model number, then google for it and look at the specs, could be that if its an old board the 80gig is to much for it and it wont allow it to operate. Old boards with old BIOS's have hdd limits on them that aint very big. Try updating your Bios and see if that helps:)
 
I bet you I know the problem! Older compaqs had a portion of the bios on the hard drive. There is really no way to replace the harddrive without an original drive. Though, I never tried copying the partition over using like Linux or something... But either way, I've run into this problem before. About all you can do is run it as a slave.
 
Ummm... why would you be putting the Seagate disc into your cd rom for bootup?
1.) You have not partitioned your HD.
2.) You have not formatted your HD.
3.) You have not installed your OS on your HD.

I have never known a cd from the HD manufacturer to have the OS on their cd with the HD drivers on it. It probably doesn't even have a boot sector on it... just autorun for their software to install the drivers.

Try putting your OS on the HD and then try using the cd for the Seagate... which you probably won't even need.

Also, are the jumpers on your HD correct?
 
Trust me people, it's not possible without the partition. I'd bet most anything that's why it's not working because I ran into the EXACT same problem with my grandparent's machine.
 
Have you cheched the HDD setting in the BIOS? It may not be seeing your new drive.
Othewise try a Windows boot floppy. Use the FDISC command to partition and format the drive then try again
 
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