My baby sister has a ACER Apire 4702Z Laptop, and just very recently Windows Vista no longer loads the login screen it stays black with the mouse pointer on the screen. I've tried to start up in safe mode on all settings and still no login screen. I then checked the BIOS and it shows the HDD is being recognized. I then tried to Load Windows XP Pro but during the installation process it says that their is NO hard Drive found at all. My question essentially is the HDD dead, if it is where can I buy a new HDD for a good price. If their is a way to bypass or get a way to get the HDD running I'm open to all suggestions. Thank you very much,
your hd is alive & well but is a sata not ide so xp has problems with that when installing windows. is there info on the hd she wants recovered?
No she only uses it for school but she kept everything backed up on a thumb drive. Can you give any tips on how to install XP Pro on this laptop so that her PC can run more efficiently. Any help or suggestions is well appreciated. Will I need to download special drivers for it? Please keep me informed. Thank you very much.
It's a real pain...you need to load SATA drivers from a floppy disc (only floppy, it will not load from the DVD, FLASH, or Hard drive). If you have an external floppy drive to use, then use it. If not, you can try integrating the driver into the XP cd itself. Also, you can try formating a flash drive with the HP utility...this will trick some bios's into thinking it is a floppy drive.
