newbie laptop question concerning bios

[afcruchief]

I apologize in advance for my lack of knowledge on this subject but here goes. I have an old compaq presario 900 laptop and the hard drive crashed on it .I am going to buy sum more memory and a new hard drive ,but I was wondering if I need a bios boot disk to install on my hard drive before I load up an OS??I know I had to do this before with a desktop but I am unsure about laptops.Thanks for any help.

 

[CrazeD]

Well first off there is no difference with hardware with Laptops vs Desktops. Laptops can offer the SAME components, just in a smaller, more compact version.

Now, to answer your question - it depends what OS you are trying to install. XP does NOT require a boot disk. You can format and create/delete partitions with just the XP disc. Anything from Windows ME and below WILL need a bootdisk, to format the HDD.

Let me know what OS you are trying to install and I can help you further.

 

[afcruchief]

I use xp.I installed the hard drive,more memory ,and loaded the OS.now I just need to find out why when I scroll down on a web page the screen gets wavy while scrolling.any ideas?

 

[STATus h2O]

Check it out

 

[STATus h2O]

More than likely when you installed your OS, you didn't install the proper display drivers. Go to your Device Manager (Right click on "My Computer" and click "Properties", click "Hardware", then click "Device Manager") and check if any question or exclamation marks are indicated. If so, download the appropriate drivers via Internet. Below is a link to the HP/Compaq website that has a list of the appropriate drivers for your laptop.

Compaq Presario 900 Laptop Drivers