help : can't install xp on new hdd for laptop

Hi, I have an acer travelmate 4103wlm laptop. Previously, when i tried to reformat my hdd and reinstall xp using the systems and recovery cd bundled together with my laptop, it finished installation but when i want to reboot it to start to windows, it came out with a blue screen saying that an error has occured and the laptop has to be restarted. Once i restart it, it states that 'media test failure, check cable' and when i restart it again the laptop prompts me to enter hdd password after the bios loading screen. The hdd password seems to be created after the error and I'm not sure why it happens. Hope some of you can help me out on this issue. Next i tried to replace my original hdd with an external hdd(taken the cover out and plug in the hdd slot of my laptop) and use the recovery cd to install xp. It followed this sequence: insert systems cd(bootable,this is where i select full hdd recovery which means formatting if i'm not wrong) > insert recovery cd 1 (load a screen with progress bar, at the bottom first it says restoring partition then it says found some bad sector, then progress bar continued) > insert recovery cd 2 (progress bar 100%, it prompts me to reinsert the systems cd, it will copy some programs and finish the process) > when i insert the systems cd, the whole process starts all over, it prompts me whether i want to do a full hdd recovery again. I did formatting with my original hdd before and when i reinsert systems cd, a progress bar will pop up and says copying data, once it's done it will prompt me to remove cd and reboot and xp will start. But in the case of this new hdd, it just restarts the process again and again. Then i tried to get a windows xp cd from my friend and install, this is only one cd. I selected a full format at first but it didn't seem to work. Then i restarted my laptop and run the cd again, this time i selected quick format, it works and then proceeds to install xp as well. Then when i removed the cd and reboot, it loads to bios and then shows a blank screen for a few minutes(about 5mins) before loading the xp screen, then after it loads a blue screen and said error has occurred and computer will restarts automatically. Can anyone tell me if i did something wrong and how to install xp to this new hdd that i took from an external hdd. The new hdd is a 120G hitachi hdd that i've been using as external hdd for some time, and the original hdd is a toshiba 80G hdd with two partition, 40G on each side.

Hi and welcome to the forum: This just and FYI - Recovery disks many times DO NOT contain an operating system, they merely access a hidden partition on the original Hard drive. If you formatted the original HD, that partition is probably gone, hence no operating system. Sorry If I don't understand your question correctly. BG

The first thing I noticed is that your recovery set warned you of bad sectors found on one of those drives. Its likely the drive is failing or has physical problems. Those problems have to be resolved before installing windows.

Secondly, if these are SATA drives you may need to load SATA drivers or change the SATA mode in the laptop's BIOS settings.

However, usually if it is a SATA issue windows xp will not recognize the drive at all.

I think it is likely you have bad sectors on both the hard drives that need to be resolved.

To do this, you need to boot the windows XP CD again and select "R" to choose recovery console as soon as the windows xp setup gets past its initial start sequence. Once at the recovery console choose your installation (usually 1, administrator password is usually blank). At the command prompt, type chkdsk /r and let it run through. It can take quite a while and it will notify you of bad clusters that it finds. More than a couple is a good sign the drive is failing.

Also, concerning this hard drive password thing. Make sure you go into the BIOS settings and disable any hard drive passwords/encryption under your security settings.