Missing OS and now cant install new HDD

[Spungy]

I Have a compaq V6000 running Vista and the other day i turned it on to find Missing Operating System.. I have no recovery disc so i tryed booting the partition with F11 on start up but no luck.. So i started to hit F8 to find repair your computer but no luck. I got a copy of Vista and boot from disc and hit Repair your computer but it didnt detect any C: or D: (recovery) partitions. So i got a copy of XP boot it from disc and it is still detecting no Hard Drives...
Realiseing this was not a quick fix i removed the hdd and connected it to a working machine tru usb.. I was able to scan and fix D partition but to access C it wanted me to format after a few unsuccessfull Formats i decided the drive was dead,i tryed one mor time to access the recovery partition with F11 after useing Chkdsk but no luck... I have spare sata drive here so i placed it in the broken compaq and tryed to install XP but it is still not detecting the hdd.. i heard somewhere about new chipset drivers have to be installed but know nothing about this.. Can anybody help? Is this a motherbord problem? Any ideas would be much appreciated...

 

[Lexluethar]

If you plugged the drive into another PC and it still could not be recognized I would say the drive is bad. If it worked when you plugged it in yet the original computer was not recognizing the hard drive they I would say either the cable or controller on the MB is dead.

As for recovery - vista does not come with a repair tool so i'm not 100% sure where you were trying to repair the partition. What you should try to do is repair the MBR on the drive, which can be done by a 3rd party tool (Mak posted it somewhere in the windows forum). If repairing the MBR does not work then the hard drive may in fact be dead (or the cable or the controller on the mb).

 

[MundoDragon]

There is no reason why you should not have recovery disks for a PC if you bought it from a manufacturer, such as Compaq. The only problem is, most manufacturers, Compaq included, have steered away to supplying hard copies of the system software and simply storing it on a hidden partition on the hard drive. You seem to be a victim of this lack of foresight by these huge computer manufacturers. By storing the software on the hard disk, when the disk goes bad, so does your recovery (Although, in their defense, but still inexcusable IMO, most have an option to burn your own recovery disk from this partition). Now, I would call Compaq ASAP and demand a recovery disk from them, because as it now stands, if your hard drive IS bad, even buying a new one will not solve your problem without buying a new OS to go with it. Good luck and when buying a system in the future, I would suggest making sure you get hard copies of all included software. As you are paying them, there is no reason why you should have to 'make your own'

 

[Sheepykins]

the reason they dont give out recovery disks anymore is because most new computers now come with burners, so they save themselves manufacturing costs of disks by not supplying one and ensure people go away and buy writeable disks, which they never do and this happens.

you can download some third party tools to effectivly zero fill the drive and fix the master boot record as LEX suggested, but it still would detect the drive if the mbr was faulty it just wouldnt let you install anything.

if the sata drive you're trying to put in works but just isnt recognised and this broken PC has a sata connections then try flashing the bios (updating the bios) as this can sometimes fix this sort of problem.

but if its just not registering a drive its probably not the motherboard, try an ide drive, see if it picks that up. replacing cables can be annoying so try the ones you have with another PC if they work it aint the cables,