After formatting HDD "Setup didnot find any Harddisk"

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Hi I am new to this Forum Mania. I bought a new Laptop with "Linpus Linux livecd" preinstalled. I tried formatting/partitioning the HDD with Gparted Live CD and made a FAT 32 partition and delete the EXT partition (All Linux Partitions).

Now if I try to install Windows XP sp2 with bootable XP cd it gives me an error "setup didnot find any harddisk drives installed on your computer".
Also when I boot my machine from HDD it takes me to some GRUB. I read few forum and got soln like fixmbr and fixboot, but not able to use them coz windows XP installer is not able to find my harddisk drive. I want to install Windows XP.
Please help .

[oz]

Try booting with the SuperGrub liveCD:

Super Grub Disk Webpage: Home Page

It can be used for reinstalling/removing the GRUB or Windows bootloader. Once GRUB is out of the way, I think you'll be able to boot your WinXP CD.

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I tried booting with the SuperGrub LiveCD and trying different options from long but not able to fix it. If I choose Linux (Advanced) then it ask me abt the old Window's version for restoring mbr, but this is not the case coz earlier "Linpus Linux livecd" was pre installed which I dont want to restore. Please tell me the exact option (steps) to choose in SuperGrub for this case. It will be a gr8 help. Thanks...

[oz]

Boot the SuperGrub CD again and go to:

Advanced / Grub / Uninstall Grub

perform the removal... then reboot with your Windows XP disk in the drive.

If that doesn't work, use the SuperGrub CD again and try the Windows option this time and tell it to restore the Windows XP MBR.

I think either of the above options should remove GRUB allowing you to boot with the WinXP CD for your new installation.

Let us know...

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I tried the options, GRUB is removed but problem still persists. Its gives me the same warning "setup didnot find any harddisk drives installed on your computer".
Also when I try to boot from HDD it gives me a msg "Media test failed, check cables" but when I check my IDE status from BIOS its OK.
Really fed up (
Plz tell me if anything can be done after installing Linux. My requirement is Windows XP only but I will compromise with space if things can b resolved with Dual OS

[oz]

I'm not sure if this will work or not, but I can't think of much else to try...

Download the Parted Magic LiveCD:

Parted Magic

It's a small download and quick burn to CD, and is a good tool for working with Linux or Windows partitions.

Boot up the livecd, go to a terminal, and execute this:

dd if=/dev/zero of=/dev/hda bs=512 count=1

That should wipe the hard drive and make it like you are booting with a brand new drive.

Let us know...

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Still not working. I tried "dd if=/dev/zero of=/dev/hda bs=521 count=1" on livecd terminal but it is saying /dev/hda is readonly. Then I tried "dd if=/dev/zero of=/dev/hda1 bs=521 count=1" but nothing is working out. DO I need to replace my new HDD.

[oz]

No, you shouldn't need to buy another hard drive.

Try booting with the Parted Magic LiveCD again, but use Gparted to simply delete all the partitions on the hard drive. After doing so, try to boot your WinXP CD again.

Let us know.