Hi Guys

A friend of mine has just picked up a cheap second hand, albeit suspiciously new, Compaq Presario notebook. It had Windows XP installed and a psu but came with nothing else. On the underside, the sticker indicates that it is a Presario V3700.

The windows installation is Thai. When my friend wanted to use it, he found that there where drivers missing for the sound and network connections. The shop contacted Compaq who emailed a list of www addresses to download every neccesary driver. They are as follows

Intel chipset installation utility for ICH8 (sp36880.exe)

UAA (sp33566.exe)

Audio (sp34386.exe)

Modem (sp33839)

Graphics - Intel 965 Express set

Network - Intel pro wireless and Broadcomm Wireless Lan sp34489.exe and sp36684.exe

HP Wireless Assistant sp34510.exe

Bluetooth (when trying to install this it says no bluetooth) sp32883.exe

Storage - For card reader sp33020.exe

and a few other misc items like touchpad, webcam etc etc

Downloading the files was easy enough using my computer and connection and transferring them with a usb stick was a breeze. I installed the drivers on to his machine and then restarted the computer. The windows is loading windows came on, everything looked good for a few seconds and then it restarted again. It does nothing else but keep on restarting now and Inever make it to the windows proper screen.

Sod it, I will just reformat the hard disk, reinstall UK windows from scratch and then apply the drivers Ithought. But when I inserted the Windows cd and it went through the initialisation screens and I chose reinstall windows, it comes up with this error

"Setup did not find any hard disk drives on your computer

Make sure any hard disks are powered and properly connected andthat any disk related hardware onfiguration is correct. This may involve running a manufacturer supplied diagnostic or set up program

Setup cannot continue"

I tried safe mode, it doesnt load and it just resets again

So I thought....... no worries, whip out the hard disk in the laptop...... connect it to my computer as an external usb drive using a dongle i have and then reformat there instead............. errrr <deleted> is it with compaq internal hard disks and the connectors they use because its sure not industry standard and so Icannot connect it to my computer..........

Ai ai ya

So here is this brand new second hand computer which I cannot access to reinstall windows, cant reformat the disk, cant connect i to my 3 year old laptop in anyway but I can and have checked the disk integrity through the bios........ yep, its working fine

Can anyone please help me to help out my friend, I have no idea what to do next

cheers

JAF

Ps I have a sneaky feeling this has something to do with the bluetooth driver shown above. I remember a screen coming up to tell me that there was no bluetooth device enabled or something similiar and to click on cancel to omit this driver. It then mentioned something about installing the drivers on restarting the machine......... could this explain the loop its caught in now and if so......... how do I regain a modicom of control to at least reformat the bugger

The industry standard is SATA for newer hard drives.

Looks like your "old" laptop has an ATA drive installed.

Best to buy an external casing for an SATA drive and format this via the USB port an another computer.

After formatting reinstall the drive in your laptop and reinstall windows.

If this not works the drive is properly fuc***d

Hi Guys

A friend of mine has just picked up a cheap second hand, albeit suspiciously new, Compaq Presario notebook. It had Windows XP installed and a psu but came with nothing else. On the underside, the sticker indicates that it is a Presario V3700.

The windows installation is Thai. When my friend wanted to use it, he found that there where drivers missing for the sound and network connections. The shop contacted Compaq who emailed a list of www addresses to download every neccesary driver. They are as follows

Intel chipset installation utility for ICH8 (sp36880.exe)

UAA (sp33566.exe)

Audio (sp34386.exe)

Modem (sp33839)

Graphics - Intel 965 Express set

Network - Intel pro wireless and Broadcomm Wireless Lan sp34489.exe and sp36684.exe

HP Wireless Assistant sp34510.exe

Bluetooth (when trying to install this it says no bluetooth) sp32883.exe

Storage - For card reader sp33020.exe

and a few other misc items like touchpad, webcam etc etc

Downloading the files was easy enough using my computer and connection and transferring them with a usb stick was a breeze. I installed the drivers on to his machine and then restarted the computer. The windows is loading windows came on, everything looked good for a few seconds and then it restarted again. It does nothing else but keep on restarting now and Inever make it to the windows proper screen.

Sod it, I will just reformat the hard disk, reinstall UK windows from scratch and then apply the drivers Ithought. But when I inserted the Windows cd and it went through the initialisation screens and I chose reinstall windows, it comes up with this error

"Setup did not find any hard disk drives on your computer

Make sure any hard disks are powered and properly connected andthat any disk related hardware onfiguration is correct. This may involve running a manufacturer supplied diagnostic or set up program

Setup cannot continue"

I tried safe mode, it doesnt load and it just resets again

So I thought....... no worries, whip out the hard disk in the laptop...... connect it to my computer as an external usb drive using a dongle i have and then reformat there instead............. errrr <deleted> is it with compaq internal hard disks and the connectors they use because its sure not industry standard and so Icannot connect it to my computer..........

Ai ai ya

So here is this brand new second hand computer which I cannot access to reinstall windows, cant reformat the disk, cant connect i to my 3 year old laptop in anyway but I can and have checked the disk integrity through the bios........ yep, its working fine

Can anyone please help me to help out my friend, I have no idea what to do next

cheers

JAF

Ps I have a sneaky feeling this has something to do with the bluetooth driver shown above. I remember a screen coming up to tell me that there was no bluetooth device enabled or something similiar and to click on cancel to omit this driver. It then mentioned something about installing the drivers on restarting the machine......... could this explain the loop its caught in now and if so......... how do I regain a modicom of control to at least reformat the bugger

That the BIOS could recognize the Harddisk didn't mean that the Harddisk is ok! It could be that the Bios read the PCB of the HDD but the Heads are down!

First step is to take out the HDD and try on an Desktop to see you can format the HDD. If you can, download the latest Bios version from HP/Compaq and update the BIOS. If that don't works and the Laptop can't access the HDD, contact HP/Compaq Service.

Cheers.

The industry standard is SATA for newer hard drives.

Looks like your "old" laptop has an ATA drive installed.

Best to buy an external casing for an SATA drive and format this via the USB port an another computer.

After formatting reinstall the drive in your laptop and reinstall windows.

If this not works the drive is properly fuc***d

Yes, you are right, new sata drive whereas I have the older ata

but still, bit drastic having to go out and buy a new dongle just so that I can reformat the drive to reinstall windows on what is a brand new machine. Surely there is an easier way or a simple program that I could use to reformat the hard disk before it accesses Windows using the Compaq notebook..........

Hi Guys

A friend of mine has just picked up a cheap second hand, albeit suspiciously new, Compaq Presario notebook. It had Windows XP installed and a psu but came with nothing else. On the underside, the sticker indicates that it is a Presario V3700.

The windows installation is Thai. When my friend wanted to use it, he found that there where drivers missing for the sound and network connections. The shop contacted Compaq who emailed a list of www addresses to download every neccesary driver. They are as follows

Intel chipset installation utility for ICH8 (sp36880.exe)

UAA (sp33566.exe)

Audio (sp34386.exe)

Modem (sp33839)

Graphics - Intel 965 Express set

Network - Intel pro wireless and Broadcomm Wireless Lan sp34489.exe and sp36684.exe

HP Wireless Assistant sp34510.exe

Bluetooth (when trying to install this it says no bluetooth) sp32883.exe

Storage - For card reader sp33020.exe

and a few other misc items like touchpad, webcam etc etc

Downloading the files was easy enough using my computer and connection and transferring them with a usb stick was a breeze. I installed the drivers on to his machine and then restarted the computer. The windows is loading windows came on, everything looked good for a few seconds and then it restarted again. It does nothing else but keep on restarting now and Inever make it to the windows proper screen.

Sod it, I will just reformat the hard disk, reinstall UK windows from scratch and then apply the drivers Ithought. But when I inserted the Windows cd and it went through the initialisation screens and I chose reinstall windows, it comes up with this error

"Setup did not find any hard disk drives on your computer

Make sure any hard disks are powered and properly connected andthat any disk related hardware onfiguration is correct. This may involve running a manufacturer supplied diagnostic or set up program

Setup cannot continue"

I tried safe mode, it doesnt load and it just resets again

So I thought....... no worries, whip out the hard disk in the laptop...... connect it to my computer as an external usb drive using a dongle i have and then reformat there instead............. errrr <deleted> is it with compaq internal hard disks and the connectors they use because its sure not industry standard and so Icannot connect it to my computer..........

Ai ai ya

So here is this brand new second hand computer which I cannot access to reinstall windows, cant reformat the disk, cant connect i to my 3 year old laptop in anyway but I can and have checked the disk integrity through the bios........ yep, its working fine

Can anyone please help me to help out my friend, I have no idea what to do next

cheers

JAF

Ps I have a sneaky feeling this has something to do with the bluetooth driver shown above. I remember a screen coming up to tell me that there was no bluetooth device enabled or something similiar and to click on cancel to omit this driver. It then mentioned something about installing the drivers on restarting the machine......... could this explain the loop its caught in now and if so......... how do I regain a modicom of control to at least reformat the bugger

That the BIOS could recognize the Harddisk didn't mean that the Harddisk is ok! It could be that the Bios read the PCB of the HDD but the Heads are down!

First step is to take out the HDD and try on an Desktop to see you can format the HDD. If you can, download the latest Bios version from HP/Compaq and update the BIOS. If that don't works and the Laptop can't access the HDD, contact HP/Compaq Service.

Cheers.

It didnt just test the headers......... there is an option to check the whole disk integrity which it passed. Its a Hitachi btw and for all intensive purposes, lets assume it is brand new because the machine certainly looks brand new, apparently its only a month old but on its second owner hence second hand.....

Of course, if the hard disk had completely failed, would it even begin to load windows......this one this does.......... it just stops after a few seconds and loops back again to the beginning.......ad nauseum. I see the Windows loading screen each time, it disappears after a few seconds and then repeats the whole process again

Maybe you are right, I am only hestitating at guesses here but I dont have a sata machine to connect it too to try reformatting it there.........

JAF

You can get an SATA to USB connector at the IT-Mall's for app. TH B 250-500 but you sure the drive is SATA?!

Where you're by the way? In BKK?

Cheers.

If you have a symantec recovery disk lying arond you could boot that from CD, reformat from there.

Or (dont know if this will work)

Could you boot some linux from CD into memory and format HDD

worth a try.

You can get an SATA to USB connector at the IT-Mall's for app. TH B 250-500 but you sure the drive is SATA?!

Where you're by the way? In BKK?

Cheers.

I think I will ask the local computer techie to have a quick look and try to reformat there. I assume its Sata because it has a completely different connector than my ata drive and its a new machine.

I am in the deep dark South, where prices are more expensive on acount of the bus fare that said "object" has to pay to get down here, basic rule of thumb, add 200 to 500 baht more

That hardware bus from Bangkok is expensive

JAF

Sounds like you'll be needing the SATA drivers as part of the OS installation image. If you want to do it that way you can build a new image bundled with the correct drivers and burn it back onto disk. Try this utility nLite for creating the image.

Have fun

Edit: I have heard rumoured that some machines that no longer ship with floppy drives will allow you emulate a floppy drive by mounting a USB memory device, hence enabling you to press F6 and load your third party drivers off the device at installation kick-off. Might be worth checking the BIOS to see if there's a workaround like this ...