Vista Upgrade Problem Disables XP Install

Situation:

My son's in Estonia for a semester. A couple of mos. ago he got smoked
with the Vista update debaucle, and his computer told him that it could
not find the harddrive after Vista upgraded.

So, he installed Ubuntu Linux so he could do school work (yes, he left
his new computer's recovery disks stateside).

I mailed him a good copy of XP so he could fix things, which he tried to
install a couple of weeks ago. BUT, when he installed XP, on reboot, he
got the same error that he got with Vista after its update problem,
"Cannot find harddrive."

Question: Did Vista's update issue involve also the BIOS? In this case,
Linux installation wiped his HD clean with a new format. How can he get
the same error with XP that he got with Vista, unless MS changed
something in firmware?

Thanks for you replies!

Question: Did Vista's update issue involve also the BIOS?

Answer: No. Windows Vista nor any other Windows O/S
will make any changes to the BIOS or settings therein.

Apparently, the BIOS settings are mis-configured or Windows XP
was not installed coreectly. Please see the following:

Clean Install Windows XP
http://michaelstevenstech.com/cleanxpinstall.html

--
Carey Frisch
Microsoft MVP
Windows Desktop Experience -
Windows System & Performance

---------------------------------------------------------------

"Richard Storey" wrote:

Situation:

My son's in Estonia for a semester. A couple of mos. ago he got smoked
with the Vista update debaucle, and his computer told him that it could
not find the harddrive after Vista upgraded.

So, he installed Ubuntu Linux so he could do school work (yes, he left
his new computer's recovery disks stateside).

I mailed him a good copy of XP so he could fix things, which he tried to
install a couple of weeks ago. BUT, when he installed XP, on reboot, he
got the same error that he got with Vista after its update problem,
"Cannot find harddrive."

Question: Did Vista's update issue involve also the BIOS? In this case,
Linux installation wiped his HD clean with a new format. How can he get
the same error with XP that he got with Vista, unless MS changed
something in firmware?

Thanks for you replies!

Have him boot to the XP CD, and choose 'repair' rather than setup. (press
'r') The Recovery Console prompt lets him run the command :
FIXMBR
Then setup should work.
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Mark L. Ferguson
..

"Richard Storey" <> wrote in message
news:5b688$4806138a$4b5a77db$...
> Situation:
>
> My son's in Estonia for a semester. A couple of mos. ago he got smoked
> with the Vista update debaucle, and his computer told him that it could
> not find the harddrive after Vista upgraded.
>
> So, he installed Ubuntu Linux so he could do school work (yes, he left his
> new computer's recovery disks stateside).
>
> I mailed him a good copy of XP so he could fix things, which he tried to
> install a couple of weeks ago. BUT, when he installed XP, on reboot, he
> got the same error that he got with Vista after its update problem,
> "Cannot find harddrive."
>
> Question: Did Vista's update issue involve also the BIOS? In this case,
> Linux installation wiped his HD clean with a new format. How can he get
> the same error with XP that he got with Vista, unless MS changed something
> in firmware?
>
> Thanks for you replies!