Hard drive not recognized

[7yph01d]

Recently, my laptop would freeze up at random. I would not be able to move the mouse, Ctrl +Alt+Del. So I tried to renew the computer with the recovery CDs. I rebooted the computer only to find that it said "OPERATING SYSTEM NOT FOUND." I put in the boot CD and put in the image DVD to restore it (Symantec Ghost 8.0) but when I had to choose the hard drive to put it on, nothing came up. I bought and installed a new hard drive. About half of the time it recognizes the hard drive, and other times it does not. I don't want to buy a new computer so What should I do?

 

[bobojuice]

Probably your hard drive is dead.

Do you hear any sound coming from the hard drive when you turn the computer on? (when it spins up or gets accessed)

 

[7yph01d]

I know it works because I just bought it from newegg.com. Also, when the computer starts up it says "Scanning IDE Drives...." and the hard drive information is displayed. After that, the prompt to open the BIOS comes up. At the end the Operating system not found message displays.

 

[bobojuice]

Oops, i misread what you wrote. It could be possible that the connection that goes from the HDD to the motherboard is lose or damaged. OR, it still could be a DOA drive that got sent to you. Really not that simple for me to tell without further inspection.

 

[7yph01d]

Thank you. I was also thinking that the cable might be damaged or loose.