Posted

Mar 2nd 2009

Mood

Angry

I'm in need of some serious help. If anyone knows even the smallest bit about installing windows on a new hard drive i'd appreciate it. I've spent the last hour on the phone with HP only to be told my problem is "normal"... aka customer support didn't know what to do. So i decided to ask anyone out there for help or suggestions on what to do. Here's the deal...

My old hard drive died on me and i got a replacement one from HP. Installed it pretty easily and then i started to install Windows XP. After booting from the CD rom everything goes smoothly until i get to the Windows Setup utility. After initiallizing setup some files begin to get transfered to the HD then the computer reboots on it's own and acts like i never started the install process at all. i'm all like .."ok, i'll just install it again". 10 failed installs later i'm about ready to throw my computer out the window. HP Setup Utility confirms that the new HD is installed correctly and detects no problems. I've even opened up my tower and tightened up the wires. Anyone know what the problem could be? I've only owned my computer for about 2 years and already spent more money upgrading it that what it actually cost me to purchase. I don't know if this might be causing problems but i added 2GB of extra memory and replaced the Power Supply with a new one bought from Best Buy(didn't know i was still under warrenty).

In the last few months i've had to reinstall Windows every few weeks because my tower feel over once and Windows wouldn't load at all. HP customer support said i'd have to wipe the HD clean and reinstall which i did. But then my valid Activation Key that came with the computer refused to work. Soon after i started to get HD Failure is Imminent messages whenever i turn on my comp. Seems like since then it's been a downhill battle. I don't know if having specs would help figure out what the issue might be but here a few facts about my machine. If anyone needs more info just let me know:

HP Compaq dc5100 Microtower PC
Intel Celeron CPU 2.66GHZ
2560 MB DDR2/533 MHZ/Asymetric