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Need to reformat the hard drive on my compaq presario 2100 running windows xp, sp3. I don't have recovery disk and could not find if there is a recovery partition.
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If you don't want to purchase the recovery disks you may want to just install a 'generic' windows xp, Vista, or Windows 7 and download the drivers you need (if not included in the generic installation) and install the computer's unique drivers.
Are you trying to set up a raid configuration? If not I would reformat using the 98 disk and reinstall. (You may be able to skip installing 98, try installing xp first and it should ask for the disk containing the software (win98) that qualifies for the upgrade.
The problem is that XP installation CD does not have a SATA driver, unless you have a Compaq SATA drive on a disk etc and can install it when XP asks for a hard drive driver, then XP cannot detect the hard disk and therefore won't install XP.
The Fix.
Go into the BIOS and disable the SATA drive, this will make XP think it is a IDE/PATA hard disk. Then install XP normally, and all the device drivers (including the SATA driver), then shut down and boot up and got into the BIOS and enable the SATA drive.
You can go into the Bios by pressing F2 on startup and see if the hdd is detected there or not, you can make the bios default by pressing F9 and then F10.
If this doesnot works you will need the ricovery disc and you will have to boot to windows recovery console and there Use the fixmbr command in the Windows XP Recovery Console to repair the MBR of the startup partition.This should hellp you to fix the problem.
Most likely you have a SATA drive which windows is not detecting. Restart the setup and press F6. You will need to use another system to download the SATA drivers and save to a disk. Then when prompted you can insert the disk. You can also upgrade to XP professional which will almost always recognize the SATA drives. Good Luck.
F11 process is not working and you get a NTLDR missing when you turnon the notebook.
Steps to be performed: 1. Perform hard drive self test from BIOS. 2. If it is passed then use retail version of operating system disk to install XP or try using new recovery disks which nay cost you $15.00.
In your notebook model this issue appears if there is any issue with the hard drive.
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