New Laptop Hard Drive

I have an HP Pavillion ZE5170 my mom wants me to put a new hard drive in & I did but when I use the recovery disks they start up & let it act like it's going to install & then just hangs on PMakPart Version 3.14 with a blinking cursor below it.

I replaced it with a new Western Digital Scorpio Blue 320GB Mobile Parallel ATA Hard Drive WD3200BEVE - 2.5", 5400rpm, 8MB. HERE
I ran all of the tests on this drive to ensure it was working properly & have even formatted with wd tools to ensure properly working, And yes I did set it to boot to the dvd drive 1st.

The recovery discs are for windows XP Home.

Since I do desktop repair & building all the time I have several copies of other operating systems & none will work, they get all the way to the 1st reboot & then just starts all over again.

Can anyone tel me what i'm doing wrong or at least make some new suggestions.

How about partitioning the new drive? Make a C: partition the same size as the original drive, then try the restore disc. If that works, you can use the Linux based GpartD to make the C: partition fill the entire disk or just make it larger then create a 2nd partition for data. Makes backups a lot easier and quicker.

I used the actual partition manager from western digital, also let xp pro, windows 2000 & even ubuntu partition themselves & still to no avail. I can load ubuntu from the disk & all is okay & even recognizes 320gb hard drive. Nothing will actually let me install a working operating system though. But maybe i'm not understanding what you're asking me to do. When I went to GParted it states that - ///WARNING/// Due to a hardware/firmware bug, it's _NOT_ recommended to run GParted live on some types of HP Pavilion machines. Otherwise your VGA card fan might be dead. So I can't use that. Any other suggestions?

I can't be certain, but my money is on the drive, not because it wont work, but because the software it needs to use the disks is on a hidden partition on the old drive, these days your lucky if you get a disk, nearly everything is on hidden (and some not hidden) partitions, and unless you can copy that to the new disk your in catch 22. Some recovery disks contain ALL the files required, but, some disks rely on a hidden partition to get the files it requires to do the job, this is what I am suspecting ATM, if you are able to slave these drives in another system, have a look in the Admin tools - Comp Management, then click on Disk management to the left, identify the old drive and you will see if it has a partition. What I would suggest if it does is try and clone the old drive onto the new drive, it would do away with the need to reinstall as well, unless you still wanted to, the alternate method is use an OS disk you have and fresh install with that, but when it comes to entering the key obviously use the key for their system, it's often the simplest option for people, but of course this means there is nothing else on the drive, so preloaded software etc will be gone, not always a bad thing mind. The greatest risk to people is when they try and format the original drive, because if they don't watch out they can end up wiping the hidden partition, so then they lose everything, but don't mix this format up with the format that the rescue disks may do, they are already set so the hidden partition is protected, but a format of your own will wipe the hidden files, so bare that in mind. Not sure what else I can say ATM, but hopefully these thoughts will help you move forward, good luck.

Well, that would be an option to explore if I could even get into the old hard drive. You can actually hear pieces rattling around in it. I suspect it was dropped or something. The problem with the cd key thing is that it won't even let me get that far. Is it possible the bios dma setting are incorrect for this type of drive & cable? Could I change the DMA Mode to a lesser & see if it works w/o loosing the drive speed? I'm thinking maybe the cable I have is not fast enough for the newer drive I have as laptop is about 9 yrs old at least.

TBH if the drive physically rattles when you shake it I think it's dead beyond revival, but being a store bought system the key will be on a sticker, probably on the underside of the laptop, if the drive is as it sounds, your only way forward is just use an OS disk and install via that, but use the code on the sticker on the laptop when you reach that stage, | can't see any other way forward if the platter(s) have shattered or similar, hope this helps.

The problem with that is that the install never gets that far to put anything in at all.

But is that with using a proper OS disk rather than the old rescue disk ? Because if your trying to use the rescue disk it may need the hidden partition on the old drive for what it needs, but a proper OS disk wont have that problem, does this make any difference ?

No matter what disk I use I can't get to the disk to continue loading after it partitions the hard drive & then loads the .dll files, kernel files, etc. then tells me it needs to restart to continue install which is all correct but it doesn't ever load the rest of the o.s. It just starts all over again after a long pause.

Can you access the bios and check the temps for this ? maybe just let it run for a bit with the system health screen showing and see if the temp's start creeping up the longer it's on, I'm wondering if it is getting too hot, obviously while your installing the system will be working hard so the temps would be worse, but my hope is they will be enough to give a clue at this stage. Also can you post the make\model of each drive ? then we can see what the differences are between them.

No temp setting in lappy. It's too old. There's only one drive. Brand new. WD 320GB 5400/8MB 2.5" Mobile PATA HD. Hve no specs on the old hard drive except from HP - ata/100 5400 rpm 9.5mm 8mb cache 12ms.

Well it's the same spin speed, so I would imagine it shouldn't create more heat than the old one (this was what I wondered), so I take it both drives are ide then ? what happens when you access the bios ?
Can you see the new drive listed ? does it report the drive correctly ? basically wondering if it can see the whole size of it.
With the laptop being old I'm starting to wonder if it may be a size issue, old drives etc were limited too 127gig, at least that was the maximum size systems could physically see of the drive, I'm wondering if this may be an issue here.
I have 2 thoughts about this, first use the makers utility to prepare the drive for installation (enter the model number here to find the software), create 3 partitions in it, say 2x110gig and whats left as the remainder, if it is this causing problems my hope is this will get you past that, I just noticed Ztruker suggesting setting the drive size as well so may of been thinking the same thing.

The other thought is about a bios update, but this you have to be aware that if you get it wrong you can kill the system (the board basically), so this is usually a last attempt option as it does carry a very real risk of killing it should it go wrong, but that said I have not had a problem with any I have done so far, but each maker has special instructions on how to do it for that system, so really take notice about this if you go for it.

There is always a golden rule, and in this case breaking it could kill the system, it's the greatest cause of failed flashes is power cuts, because you are warned as you start do NOT unplug or power down the system until it tells you to, so if your in a problem area thats affected by regular power-cuts then thats the last thing you need half way through this.
Now you are quite lucky it's a laptop, because it has it's own power source, so what you should do is fully charge the battery, then with the mains still powering it begin the bios update, worst case and the power goes out the battery should get you safely through the update, but thats all I can suggest for now, hope it helps.

I have one suggestion which has worked for me when a drive is acting really weird.

Download DBAN. Create a bootable CD from the .iso file. Boot the CD and run autonuke (you'll see what I mean when you boot it). Let it run for a few minutes, then remove the DBAN CD, insert a real Windows XP install CD and reboot. Partition the drive so C: is the same size as the old drive was and format as NTFS and see what happens.

If that works then try the restore CD from HP.

DBAN will wipe out track 0, making the drive unformatted and unallocated (raw).

Question, where on the GPARTD site did you see that warning? I've never seen it nor can I find it now.

Ztruker: Go to the downloads section & the bright red warning is there on the 1st screen. I'm not sure why it's not letting you see it but maybe you didn't click the same page I did. If you go to the main page (that you sent me a link to) & then over on the left-hand side of the screen it says downloads. Click on this & in the center of the page it's right there. BTW, DBAN says it's going to take 6:10:31. That's crazy long isnt it?