harddrive problems

**jayder1** · March 6th, 2008, 08:41 AM

i am working on a compaq presario 4550 and every hd i hook to they all say
oparation system not found.and when i go to bios it don't show them ether all the hd can't be bad.what should i do?

jayder

**jayder1** · March 6th, 2008, 08:42 AM

and i made it boot from the cdrom and it still say the same thing with a xp cd in it.

**BOB IROC** · March 6th, 2008, 08:51 AM

Well if the BIOS is not showing any Hard Drives then the first thing I would try is a different cable. It could also mean that the IDE Port on the motherboard is shot. The only other thing I can say is verify the jumper settings are set correctly on the drives you are trying to connect.

In the BIOS does the CD/DVD-ROM(s) show up? For testing purposes you can try to disconnect them and connect the drives to the secondary IDE Port and go into the BIOS and see if they show up.

**CCT** · March 6th, 2008, 08:52 AM

What make and size hard drive are you trying to install?

Why are trying to install a new one?

Does the computer boot from the Windows CD?

**jayder1** · March 6th, 2008, 09:22 AM

first it had a 4 gb hard drive so i put in a 20,30 and 40 and they all did they samething.yes they cd-rom is shown but the hd isn't.no it don't boot from cd it's setup to do that but it want

**Ferrit** · March 6th, 2008, 09:49 AM

Is the cdrom and the harddrive on the same cable and ide channel or are they seperate?
If they are seperate and the cdrom shows and all of those harddrives do not.
Then as Bob Iroc,change the ide cable. I would also try changeing the power cable to another off the power supply.

**NooNoo** · March 7th, 2008, 05:22 AM

If it originally had a 4 gb hard drive, you will need a bios update. The bios is quite likely unable to recognise a drive over 8 gb. Why are you putting XP on a PC this old?!

**geeksRus** · March 7th, 2008, 11:57 AM

i'm not sure XP will even install on that, even if you get a hard drive to work...which i doubt without an overlay. its only a 233 mhz K-6.

***DonJ*** · March 10th, 2008, 11:57 AM

Homepage for your Presario 4550 here:
http://h10025.www1.hp.com/ewfrf/wc/s...&lang=en&cc=us

Product specs here:
http://h10025.www1.hp.com/ewfrf/wc/d...=92804&lang=en

I sure hope you have more than 48MB RAM installed.

HP recommends that the PC meets the following Windows XP system requirements before attempting to upgrade. If the PC does not meet the minimum system requirements, upgrade the hardware to meet the requirements before attempting an upgrade to Windows XP.
Computer with 300 megahertz (MHz) or higher processor clock speed recommended; 233-MHz minimum required; Intel (R) Pentium (R) / Celeron (TM) family, AMD K6/Athlon/Duron family, or compatible processor recommended
128 megabytes (MB) of RAM or higher recommended (64 MB minimum supported; may limit performance and some features)

I highly recommend 512MB as a minimum as go up from there.

System ROM upgrade here:
http://h10025.www1.hp.com/ewfrf/wc/s...&product=92804

Also, notice the links on the left for FAQs, etc.