my laptop doesn't recognise ide harddrive

[Hornet3001]

Hello,
1)My laptop doesn't recognize it's eide internal hard drive and doesn't boot(it gives system error 0201:Failure IDE #0) and when i put its original xp cd in cdrom my computer hangs,so i can't reinstall xp either.any solutions appreciated.
2)if i install xp to my external usb harddrive,can i boot from there?

 

[porterjw]

How old is the Drive? Was the Drive dropped or jolted recently? Does your laptop vent hot air well or does it just retain heat inside the chasis?

 

[cohen]

Yes you should be able to boot off your flash drive, as long as your motherboard allows that......

Your hard drive, it sounds like it is IDE, correct??? Well have you tried changing the jumper settings on it??? Does it appear in the bios???

 

[Hornet3001]

imsati,the drive is less than 5 years old,no drop or jolt,computer's fan works correctly.
cohen,yes the drive is ide,i haven't changed the jumper settings because i hadn't touched them ever before,i am not bios expert,how do i check that appearence in bios? but today i checked with HDAT2 V4.5.3 and it detected HDD instantly,i even scanned it sector by sector,though partially,because it's lengthy,i don't think it's a hardware issue,i suspect MBR or partition table problem,what do you suggest?