New Hard Drive Installation--Possible Issues

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TheFlightMachine

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Here is my issue(s): my recent drive failed me; BIOHD-2 issue otherwise known as BOOT DISK FAILURE; it was a Seagate Barracuda 500GB 7200rpm hard drive. I installed a new one same one actually i got at i best buy. I never made any recovery disks; i know stupid. Now my question is can i use the recovery disks from my laptop on my desktop. Both my desktop and laptop are HP they only vary in OS(vista, Win 7 respectivley).
Now can anyone give me specific details on how to take it from there. Is it just a matter of powering it on and sliding the disks in which will then act accordingly and ta-dah all done.

DESKTOP SPECS:
CPU: 1.80GHz AMD Phenom 9150e quadcore
MEMORY: 4gb Samsund SDRAM
HARD DRIVE: formerly 500GB seagate Barracuda, same replacement
POWER SUPPLY: 300 Watts
VIDEO CARD: Radeon HD 4350

LAPTOP SPECS:
CPU: Core i3, 2.13 GHz
MEMORY: 4gb
HARD DRIVE: 500gb
VIDEO CARD: Intel HD 1gb
Tank you for your input in advance.
 
No. You're going to need a windows installation disk most likely. Unless you figure out a way to fix that old hard drive long enough to copy the partition over, you're going to need a windows install CD.

The recovery software is made specifically for that laptop model. I have tried different desktops (same manufacturer, and nearly identical hardware) and it just won't work.

You could enter BIOS (f2 or DEL or F10 or whatever it is for you) at initial power on, change boot priority to CD/DVD first. This will allow you to boot from the recovery CD.
Insert the CD, boot up, and then follow the instructions.

I doubt it's going to work though.
 
Yeah I second what Rich said you'll most likely need a windows disk and cd key. YOu may be able o use the key from your previous installation though. If you have any data on there, try and lace the hard drive up to your desktop as the second saa and copy accross the files if the hard drive isn't completely dead.
 
Before you wipe the old drive or throw it out, try recovering your files from it. Even if you have to reinstall Windows with a Windows DVD from scratch you can still try getting your important files off the drive. There's a few methods to do this. Without taking the drive out you can download an Ubuntu Linux CD (ubuntu.com) and burn it to a blank disc. Set up your BIOS to boot from CD and boot up Ubuntu from the menu that loads. Ubuntu is an operating system that can run entirely from the CD, so you don't have to have a working hard drive. You can try reading your hard drive by going to Places and clicking on your hard drive. If it works you can plug in an external hard drive or flash drive to copy files to or send them over the network to your other PC.
 
Thanks for the help. I just ordered recovery disks from the HP site. I do plan on transfering the data from the old drive thankfuly there was no mechanical failure.
 
i got the recovery disks and followed the steps only to a certain point due to constrictions as follow: When i turned it on with the disk in as it said, i still see a black screen, how long does it take to begin. The guide said to pop it in turn it off then turn it on and the recovery will start by its self. Its been 3 minutes at the time of this post.
Does the black screen have anything to do with the fact that i have intergrated graphics card that i disabled for my current Radeon?
 
Let me ask this. How could you possibly use a Vista Recovery Disk to recover a Win7 install or vice versa? They are 2 completely different OS's. The serial on the machine will not match the media and not allow for install. I wont ever work. You need the Win7 media to reinstall the OS, or the Vista media, which ever one you are trying to put back on the machine.

Do you have the optical drive set to boot first before the hard drive? Did you disable the onboard graphics card in the BIOS? It should only take a few seconds for the media to pop up. I have seen reports of Vista taking longer but that was due to an out of date BIOS and bad drivers for the drives.
 
Firstly i am using a vista recovery for a vista OS based desktop.
Actually before i bought and installed the new drive i did have the hard drive boot first as per instructions on some other tech forums. I have removed the lithium battery to restart the CMOS--which should help with boot order, And i never disabled the graphics card, its installation pre dates the hard drive failure by half a year. Also those reports taking the media a while, how much is while the recovery instructions that came with the discs said 2-3 hours.
 
You maybe using the media now, but my question was asked after reading your question if you could use the Recovery Media from your other machine for this machine. You even stated that they are different OS's. It is just an observation since you answered the question right after you asked it.

The removal of the CMOS battery sets the BIOS back to default settings. The default settings may not be what is needed to do what you want. Most machines that are pre-built dont need to have access to the optical drive first due to the fact the OS is already installed. So they set the BIOS to boot directly from the hard drive by default.

Included in that could be why you only see a black screen. By not disabling the onboard video, the system is probably trying to use that as the display device, not your video card. If you switch the cable from the ATi card to the onboard you might get a signal and see what the system is doing.

The instructions are for going from a blank hard drive to a fully installed and operational OS. So yeah it could take that long. As there is a lot of junk that is installed with pre-built machines. All the demo software and all of that is included on the Recovery Media as well so it has to install all of that on top of installing the OS. So while the OS itself might take only an hour, it could take that extra time to install the extra demo stuff that was on there when you got the machine.

So check the BIOS and see what the settings are. Try changing the display cable to see if the machine is trying to use the onboard instead of the dedicated video card. You may find that the machine is trying to continue the process you just cant see it due to the wrong display device being used.
 
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