Re: S5200NX will not accept restore disks

"sdlomi2" <sdlSPAMomi2@xxxxxxxxx> wrote in message
news:b5gAl.22442$i9.497@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
A friend's Compaq Pres. S5200NX failed just like 2 years ago. Restore
set fixed it then.

Now monitor was blank when trying to boot. (He admitted he "messed
around with it" while I was on vacation.) I determined a hard drive
problem, corrupt? Set bios to boot 1st from cd, installed 1st restore
disk. It fails to install. Shows 1 small partition (possibly the restore
ap to make restore set from?) and 1 larger, empty one.

The larger being empty, I lastly tried to format with MY XP Pro
disk--his has(had) XP Home from factory. As restore attempts, it stops
and gives 'cannot continue' messages, often "cannot copy xxxxx-file",
where x varies.

Help. please. How should I format his hd and MAYBE even remove the
factory partition? I feel like if formatted properly, it would accept
restoring.
Thanks in advance for helping me to help him.
sam

Is your machine also a Compaq Pres. S5200NX? If not, your XP Pro
disk may be missing some of the drivers needed to run XP on his
motherboard.

Starting here, see if you can find the way to being able to order a
replacement version of Windows specific to his model number:

http://welcome.hp.com/country/us/en/support.html?pageDisplay=drivers

If he's managed to mess up the BIOS, even that probably isn't enough,
though.

Did you try installing his hard drive in your machine as a second hard
drive before trying to reformat it? If he doesn't have a full backup of
the large partition (usually C:) available, you might want to make one
before reformatting to help retrieve any files that weren't corrupted.

If you were able to copy to the small partition successfully, you
may also try finding any drivers specific to his model of machine,
copying them to the large partition, then putting his hard drive back
in his machine, then rebooting his machine using the small partition
instead of the large one. That should allow installing the original
version of XP for that machine on the large partition, without any
changes made since the first installation. You could then probably
retrieve any data files needed from the latest backup he has (assuming
he has one), although you'll probably need to reinstall many of the
XP updates and any added software that was on it before.

Also, check if what's on the small partion allows restoring the
large partition from a backup, assuming he has a backup
compatible with any restore program included in what will run
when booted from the small partition.

Something else to check - sounds like his machine is likely to be
old enough that the battery on the motherboard could have run low;
replacing it is the first part of the fix needed for this, and it's a rather
cheap step to try first.

Robert Miles


.

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