ME and Compaq Presario HDD

retiredlearner · 12th November 2008

I've been given this Presario 1700 Laptop which wouldn't work. It didn't take long to figure out that the HDD was faulty. I'm going to procure another HDD and would like to install the Windows ME using the Compaq Quick Restore CD's which came with the laptop. Will this work? Will I be able to install the OS from these CD's to a fresh HDD? any thoughts would be appreciated. Neil.

**Steve R Jones** · 12th November 2008

I can't think of a reason why it won't work provided that the bad drive is the only issue.

retiredlearner · 12th November 2008

Thanks Steve for your answer. The original HDD was 15Gb and makes a horrible clunking noise. The screen displays the Compaq Logo and there doesn't appear to be anything wrong with the Future Bay which has CD Rom and DVD and FDD units which all work. I'll let you know if it all goes well. I would imagine the need for updates to secure the OS. I'm not familiar with ME and would seek advice on where to get updates from as I would assume ME is no longer supported by MS. Neil.

**Steve R Jones** · 12th November 2008

You should be able to get updates the good old fashion way...

retiredlearner · 14th November 2008

Thanks Steve I bought a second hand HDD and it's busy right now loading the ME OS. Fingers crossed x Neil.

retiredlearner · 17th November 2008

A very long weekend. Couldn't install ME or Win98 as the HDD had been formatted NTFS and apparently you can't reformat back to FAT32 without using Delpart to completely erase the drive. So XP was next choice. The specs for the Presario gave 700 MHz CPU and 64 MB RAM which was going to be a problem. Install stopped halfway and reported "NTLDR is missing". I Googled and found numerous posts with the same message and consensus was that RAM was faulty. I pulled the RAM and found it had been updated with 2 sticks of 64 MB RAM and after checking and reseating the RAM, it finally worked. It's all up and running except I'll have to save up and get a couple of sticks of 256 MB RAM to speed it up. The HDD I got 2nd hand was 60GB so I have plenty of room to play around. Quite a learning curve on this one and the only problem now is finding out what Function Keys all do and what they operate as a laptop setup is quite different from standard Desktop keyboard. Any help or directions would be appreciated. Neil.

**Steve R Jones** · 17th November 2008

You also could have booted off a Win98 floppy from www.bootdisk.com and ran fdisk to zap and recreate the partitions.

The XP cd you're using is worth about twice what the pc is...And keeping in mind you can get 1.5 gig machines probably for less then what the ram upgrade will cost you

retiredlearner · 18th November 2008

Steve, thanks for the advice on the system I should/could use but as this was a total freebee there is no real monetary loss - just learning. My cost to date has been $50.00 for the HDD and in hindsight the "NTLDR is missing" was possibly the cause of the system not booting from the Compaq ME Restore CD's. I then had exactly the same problem when trying to install Win98 hence the move to XP. I installed SP3 from the CD I had burned from Downloading the 316MB file and had no problems. It just went straight in and all is OK so far. I installed Avast from CD I had burnt and also Nero Ultimate 6. I went into Nero's web site and downloaded Nero Digital which gave me Showtime and the laptop will play DVD movies which will entertain the grandchildren when traveling. So all in all a cheap project considering the laptop was going to be thrown away.
Incidentally, 1.5 GB laptops fetch about $500.00 and I can get a stick of 256MB RAM for $60.00. I would like to learn a bit more about what the buttons and controls on this keyboard do and I can't seem to find any help for this at HP/Compaq. Thanks Neil.

**wildfire** · 18th November 2008

User Guide can be found here if that helps.

Hint: Try Discover and Use a product on the left hand side.

retiredlearner · 18th November 2008

Hi Wildfire, I tried the link and it's the one that you shuffle around and get nothing you're seeking. User Manual goes to a PDF which is to do with warranty. I wanted to find specifications and an operators manual and I remain stumped. I guess I'll just have a play and hope I don't stuff up. I downloaded Belarc and that gave me what I needed about the internals. Thanks for the info. Neil.

**wildfire** · 18th November 2008

Quote:

Originally Posted by retiredlearner

Hi Wildfire, I tried the link and it's the one that you shuffle around and get nothing you're seeking. User Manual goes to a PDF which is to do with warranty. I wanted to find specifications and an operators manual and I remain stumped. I guess I'll just have a play and hope I don't stuff up. I downloaded Belarc and that gave me what I needed about the internals. Thanks for the info. Neil.

Sorry about the duff info Neil, if I come across anything usefull I'll let you know.

Paddy

retiredlearner · 8th December 2008

Wildfire, I'm up and running with the laptop. I was faced with licence fee to activate XP, so I've used Delpart to completely clean the HDD and I installed Win98 followed by 98SE and all worked except sound and ethernet. I tried around for a few days for drivers and decided on Friday 5th. to try the original ME QuickRestore disks and to my surprise ME installed over the Win98SE without problem. Everything is working great. I had to install Nero Showtime to get the DVD unit to play DVD movies as this is a problem with Compaq and ME. After Googling, it appeared to be an ongoing hiccup with others using laptops with the Torisan DRD U824 unit. HP/Compaq have little to help on their web site as the BIOS only allows Password entry and set Drive order. I have procured ($40.00) and installed 256 MB PC100 SODIMM with one stick of the 64 MB RAM = 320 MB total and the unit is reasonaly quicker than it was. If others have read this thread they may be interested to see the result of perseverance. This has been another good learning curve for me. Thanks for your advise and interest. Neil.