BleepingComputer.com: Trouble After Reformatting Hard Drive

ok so i have an older winbook laptop which i am about to retire and hand over to my son. since i used this for work, i "cleaned" the hard drive (the zero - one thing) reformatted the drive and reinstalled winxp pro. next i tweaked winxp for better performance, and then started to load all updated drivers from the developers' sites.

the laptop apparently didn't like the ati update. after installing and attempting to reboot, the laptop would freeze prior to winxp completely loading. ok, so i attempted to do a system restore with acronis true image rescue cd. problem is the pc now won't read to the dvd. it is present in the bios and bios is set to boot first from this drive. btw, the bios won't allow usb boots either.

bottom line is that i don't know of another way to reinstall winxp on this laptop since i can't seem to boot to that drive now(i have tried the winxp installation cd as well as a bart cd that i have lying in waiting for such an occasion without any success.).

so i thought i might temporarily remove the hard drive and place it in my daughter's dell and try do an install of winxp; then return it to the winbook. the drives appear to be compatible, however, i would expect to have to do lots of cleanup work once i reinstalled the drive in the winbook.

anyone with any thoughts?

thanks
mark

Hi mark, can you boot into safe mode? If so uninstall the video driver. If not take the drive out (as you intended) format the drive from the other PC then place it back into the lappy and try to install XP from there.

have you tried last know good configuration from safe mode, that usually saves my butt when I load the wrong driver?

thanks for your replies.

the laptop will not boot into safe mode. it becomes non-responsive prior to entering safe mode. i wonder if some files are now corrupt.

trying to boot to last known good configuration has no effect, i suppose because i disabled the restore points option in winxp. i implement a strong backup routine and never anticipated this type of problem.

i am wondering, what situations i may encounter if i do the temp swap of the hard drive into the dell and install winxp. i know i will have to remove the dell devices and change drivers once the hard drive is back in the winbook. is there anything else for which i should be prepared?

last known does not have to have system restore turned on, I have never used system restore and have used last known good on several occasions?

Are you sure you have tried that option at the safe mode choices screen?

thanks chewy. i have attempted to boot to the last know good configuration and have gotten the same results - laptop freezes before windows loads completely.

do you think a hard drive diagnostic from a bart cd would be possible

I always have a floppy drive for that myself