I'm trying to reinstall XP on my sisters viewsonic V1250s and I cant get it to load. I have the recovery cd's and an external cd drive. Her roomate put linux on it and jacked it up. I put in a new HDD and when I try to load XP from the recovery disks i get a blue screen of death telling me to check the disk or that it has a virus when I try using an external cd drive to load it. I tried loading dos 7.1 and then copying the I386 folder but cant get windows to load that way either. Why this didnt have an internal cd drive built in is beyond me. And why send recovery CD's if they wont load on it? I really need help getting this back up. I need to know how to load the recovery cds on this, and how to get the laptop to boot from the CD. Many thanks for any help

I would reinstall it as per the instructions from HP. as there may be drivers missing.
Copy attached.

Software Pre-installed Software
HP Mobile Printing for Notebooks
HP Help and Support (XP Only)
Safety and Comfort Guide
Adobe Acrobat® Reader v. 5.10
Microsoft Reader v. 2.5
Zinio Reader v.1.4
Sun Java 1.4
Windows Media Player 9 for XP
HP Tablet PC Tour
*Intervideo WinDVD Playback Software v. 4* (Pre-loaded) Recommended software/services Availability of recommended software applications or services may vary by region and may require additional purchase and/or subscription
FranklinCovey PlanPlus (30 day trial period)
MindJet MindManager 2002 for Tablet PC (21 day trial period)
Alias SketchBook Pro (15 day trial period)
Zinio (see Digital Magazine icon on Tablet PC desktop for more information)
ScanSoft Omniform Filler 5.1 and Dragon Naturally Speaking Standard Edition 7.1 (available as a special configuration) Additional software available through the web HP Client Manager Software
HP ProtectTools Smart Card Security Manager
QuickLook for the HP Tablet PC TC1100 series *NOTE: Software is loaded on the hard drive and must be installed by running the Software Setup utility. System Recovery Each unit is shipped with a recovery CD kit containing Operating System Recovery and Driver/Application Recovery CDs. These CDs allow users to either recover or repair the tablet's operating system and select drivers without losing personal data. The Operating System CD also provides the option of reinstalling the operating system software provided with the tablet.

you'll have to use a password recovery tool for windows.
Try www.password-changer.com and http://home.eunet.no/pnordahl/ntpasswd/.

Yes you will be able to reinstall Windows xp if you het a new hard drive and a cdrom that works for this laptop. You can also try a external cdrom

Are you attempting to boot from a bootable disc? A failed drive can cause the other on the bus not to work. Try each one separate set as master or cs (cable select).

it is probably the hard drive failing as all of the items you have tried are on the hard drive
take it to a computer repair shop for a proper diagnosis

You need a CD/DVD USB drive.
Ask for one or use a HD 3,5" USB drive, open de HD USB disconect the HD and conect a CD drive, it will work like a CD USB drive.

It could be bad RAM, but it could also be drive error.

Try running chckdsk.exe

If the drive is ok, try copying the win xp cd to the HD and try to install from the HD

First, you need to copy your Windows XP Setup CD contents to your harddrive. I recommend saving the xp install files/folders to a separate partition than where you're going to install xp to (ie. have setup files at d:\winxp\ and then install xp to c:\ drive)

restart your computer with the win 98 boot disk
at the command prompt change to the drive with the xp files
ie. cd d:\winxp\i386\
type winnt to start installing
install as usual

External HDs are not usually recognised on boot, however some external CD drives are.. although most of these type of devices have a built in recovery partition, which should allow you to restore this tablet back to factory without having to resort to loading from external devices. try pressing f10 or f11 on boot or look for other messages on bootup to press a key combination if all else fails try looking for instructions on factory reset from the manufacturers website

I think you are either going to need the docking bay or an external PCMCIA CD-ROM drive to reinstall either Windows 2000 or XP. Legally I believe you need to install a new OS anyway as MS does not allow the transfer of education licensed operating system from the original owner. http://www.viewsonic.com/pdf/us_eng/products/vp_guide_1000_10-22.pdf None of those options work? Try this... http://www.petri.co.il/forgot_administrator_password.htm

try openig and closing the computer