Fotzlid

Here is my problem.
My old laptop died. There were photo files and bookmarks I wanted to save.
I took the HDD out of her machine and placed mine in. I removed what I wanted and switched the HDD back. Now her machine won't recognize the HDD. When I boot up, says it can't find the OS or a wire is unplugged.
I tried re-seating it a couple of times with no luck. I don't see any unconnected wires.

Any ideas?

Cynthetiq

did you plug the power plug back in? Laptop drives don't use power....

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Fotzlid

Was running off the battery initially. Just tried it with the plug in and got an "operating system not found" message.

Cynthetiq

oh gotcha, laptop to laptop, i thought somehow you opted it into a desktop.

do you have a usb adapter for laptop droves?

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I don't care if you are black, white, purple, green, Chinese, Japanese, Korean, hippie, cop, bum, admin, user, English, Irish, French, Catholic, Protestant, Jewish, Buddhist, Muslim, indian, cowboy, tall, short, fat, skinny, emo, punk, mod, rocker, straight, gay, lesbian, jock, nerd, geek, Democrat, Republican, Libertarian, Independent, driver, pedestrian, or bicyclist, either you're an asshole or you're not.

Fotzlid

No

Cynthetiq

do you have a copy of XP (whatever OS) see if you can do a boot repair.

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I don't care if you are black, white, purple, green, Chinese, Japanese, Korean, hippie, cop, bum, admin, user, English, Irish, French, Catholic, Protestant, Jewish, Buddhist, Muslim, indian, cowboy, tall, short, fat, skinny, emo, punk, mod, rocker, straight, gay, lesbian, jock, nerd, geek, Democrat, Republican, Libertarian, Independent, driver, pedestrian, or bicyclist, either you're an asshole or you're not.

Fotzlid

I had a recover disk but can't find it.
Could I make one from the new machine or do the numbers have to match?
Will the machine recognize the CD drive when it can't find the OS?

Zweiblumen

Some details might help, what OS (like Cyn I am assuming XP), but what kind of hd is it.
If it's an ATA (IDE) drive then it is possible, not likely, that the hd connectors are upside down or one pin off.

Yours
ZB

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Flinx

I havn't a clue if the numbers have to match BUT the version of XP does.
Example a recover disk from Dell probably would not work on a gateway.

Doesn't matter if the machine can find the OS or not to be able to boot off a CD/DVD, thats up to the bios which comes BEFORE the OS.

Umm.. I wouldn't actually even start with a recovery disk, I'd start with BartPE Disk or something close to that. Come to think on it I'd start in the BIOS and see if the BIOS even recognizes that the hdd is there and double check the bios settings to see if somehow some thing wasn't changed by accident THEN boot the BartPE disk or even a XPlive disk would work.

BTW what error do you get on boot? That certainly might help track down what needs to be done.

Fotzlid

All I got was the HP logo page with the F-key options, then a message reading "Operating system not found."

I brought it to a local computer repair shop that I've used in the past. I'll know sometime this week what went wrong.

Thanks for the replies everyone. This is obviously something waaay beyond my skill level.

tcp

Sometimes when you swap hard drives like that, the BIOS gets mixed up. You should have checked the Hard Drive priority which is like the Boot Order option but just for Hard Drives.