Problem reading storage device

[timyo]

A couple of days ago, I came home too my computer being on but froze with a black screen. I rebooted, and when it came back on, there was an error saying something like "Reboot and select proper boot device". I kept retrying and restarting and only got that or I would get stuck on the boot screen with it saying "Detecting storage device".

After deciding I had a bad hard drive, I went and bought another one today. After I plugged it all in and booted up the PC, the same thing happened again. I'm not sure what the problem is now. Anyone got a clue? Any kind of help is appreciated.

PC Specs:
HP Pavillion a6720f
Windows Vista 64 bit Home Premium
Original harddrive: Samsung HD642JJ 640 GB SATA 3.0GB/s
New harddrive: Seagate 1TB Barracuda SATA 3.0GB/s

 

[Emerald]

have tried booting without USB devices connected (USB mouse and keyboard are OK)?

have you tried to get into the BIOS and see which drives are detected?

 

[smorizio]

when you install a new drive the bios is still goingto be set to boot from the old drive if the controller is still working and the drive is showing up it the bios. you have to change the boot order to cr-rom and put the windows recovery cd in the drive and boot from it. (before you do this take the old drive out) you dont want windows to wipe it if you want to try and recover the data from it. once the reimage is done go into the bios again and boot from the new hd as first boot device. if the mb chipset is fine it should boot into windows with no issues. turn off the pc and put the old drive back in and run some man test tools like seatools if it a seagate hd.

 

[timyo]

To emerald: Yes and yes.
To smorizio: I dont have any of the recovery cd's that came with the computer