Laptop packed Up

Rickki

I have a 4 year old Compaq laptop. It has been problem free until the other week when I did a disk defrag. The machine froze mid way through. I rebooted it and it told me that it could not find an operation system. I presumed the hard drive had packed up so I bought another one, installed it but I get exactly the same problem. I ask it to boot from the Windows XP, it goes through all the inspection files (but not once does the hard drive light come on) and I get to the screen that gives me the choice to install XP and I get the response that it could not find any hard drive! It tells me to check the hard drive connection lead but it can't be that. Is there a power issue? It is connected to the mains & not using the laptop battery. Any ideas what the problem could be?

Conor_3

Chances are you've bought a hard drive the laptop BIOS can't recognise. What size hard drive did you buy? Does the laptop BIOS recognise any drive there at all?

Rickki

It's exactly the same one as the old hard drive. I am getting the same response from my computer as with the old drive saying it could not find a hard drive. I wonder if it is a motherboard failure or power problem?