Marb750

HD crashed bad, so I ordered and installed this one HERE as a replacement. Is this even compatible? The HD shows up in the BIOS, but no matter what I do, the PC always ends up with a blinking cursor in the upper left of a completely blank screen after it displays the HP splash screen.
It won't boot a Win install disc, UBCD, BartsPE, Linux-based or any other bootable discs I have... and there's no provisions for a USB boot as far as I can tell (EDIT: yes, it does have that option). However, I no longer have all of the HP restore discs, so I can't try that w/o ordering a new set. Are the restore discs an absolute necessity for this machine? I just don't want to order them if I don't have to.

I've even tried disabling the add-on video card and using the on-board - same result.

All of the RAM shows up in the BIOS (new when HD replaced) and I get no unusual noises or error messages.

PC: HP Pavilion 505w (specs)
upgrades: PCI video card (can't remember model, but it's a 64mb Nvidia, and I now disabled)
2x512gb ram (installed at time of new HD) (specs)
USB mouse (MS)

Everything else is OEM

EDIT: I now get DISK BOOT FAILURE, INSERT SYSTEM DISK AND PRESS ENTER after I disabled all of the boot choices except the CD-Rom

Tyree

The Optical drive (CD-DVD) has to be set to First Boot Device in the Bios.
Did you jumper the new Hdd the same as the previous drive.

Marb750

I tried it with the CD-Rom drive set as First Boot, and tried it as First Boot with the others disabled. The jumper setting appear to be slightly different than the OEM drive, but I tried a couple different settings according to the label on the new drive: the factory setting ("Cable Select") and w/o the jumper ("Single or Master"). Everything gets the same result.

BTW, the "DISK BOOT FAILURE" seems to happen every time if I wait long enough at the blinking cursor. Opening/closing the CD-drive (with Win disk in) and pressing enter eventually repeats the DISK BOOT FAILURE message over and over.

Marb750

"EDIT time limit" expired...

I don't get the DISK BOOT FAILURE message anymore, just a blinking cursor forever

Marb750

Anyone else have any ideas? I'm almost wondering if something else failed that caused the old HDD to fail and is preventing the CD-Rom from reading?

I've checked all of the connections - power and cables. Everything shows up properly in the BIOS screen. Loaded BIOS defaults; tried clearing the ESDC(?); tried it with one stick of RAM... I've even left it at the blinking cursor for a few hours - still nothing... :(

The only thing I haven't done is pull the battery out (I thought that was only needed if you couldn't access the BIOS?). I'll try it and leave it out overnight and see what happens in the morning.

But before I do that, I'll try another CD-Rom drive - but the old one was working right up to the HDD failure (forgot to mention the old HDD had been clicking intermittently for the past few weeks).

Marb750

Sorry for the quad-post (feel like I'm just talkin' to myself, lol), but apparently using a non-OEM CD-Rom drive fixed the install issue :D Not sure why, but oh well.