Compaq Presario will not restore after replacing hard drive

[WallyGator]

Good news! I was finally able to get the Windows 7 OS you sent me to work. Took hours but the good news is I'm not a drinking man because otherwise I'd be fried right now. I ended up finding a fix on Using the Windows 7 USB Download Tool with ANY .iso file - MIS Laboratory - Resources for Tech Faculty and Students - Site Home - MSDN Blogs and it allowed to me to use the download tool. The USB option didn't work so I put it on a DVD. The CQ57 now has the OS on it and it took my Windows product key just fine.
I've spent the last few hours trying to get the internet working but I get either driver errors or "Windows did not detect any networking hardware". I've tried different drivers and the use of an ethernet cable and still nothing. I'll keep trying though.

Thanks for all you've done. You're a life saver. (not the little candy)

 

[carnageX]

Download all the drivers from HP/Compaq's website for that model and install the appropriate drivers.

If you're not sure which ones you should get, or would rather get the latest from each component manufacturer's site...then do the following:

Open up Device Manager
On everything that has a yellow exclamation mark, do the following:
Right click -> Properties -> Details tab
Post the following info for each item that has a yellow exclamation mark:
Under "Hardware Ids" in the dropdown, it should have something like VEN_####&DEV#### ; post that section, where #### = some alphanumeric combination.