Problem With My Armada 1750 Setup Routine

[Guest]

Archived from groups: alt.sys.pc-clone.compaq (More info?)

Hello, all. I'm new to this group, and also to laptops. I have
experience with building and repairing home PCs, however this is my
first laptop. I purchased a used Compaq Armada 1750 at an auction,
and it needed a HD and caddy. I obtained those online, however, when
I installed the HD, and attempt to install an OS, the computer reports
that it sees a "Non-System Disk".
I have spent quite some time on the HP website, and from what I can
gather, this laptop requires some sort of system partition on the HD
in order for it to be set up, and so forth.
Would someone have any experience with this model of Armada, and be
willing to share some knowledge with me about how to obtain the
required files, and how to install them to the HD, when the computer
says it does not even recongize it?
I have flashed the BIOS, but it seemed to not do anything regarding my
problem.

Any help would be greatly appreciated! Thanks for your time.

Chaser

 

[Eugene]

Archived from groups: alt.sys.pc-clone.compaq (More info?)

Mumbato wrote:

> Hello, all. I'm new to this group, and also to laptops. I have
> experience with building and repairing home PCs, however this is my
> first laptop. I purchased a used Compaq Armada 1750 at an auction,
> and it needed a HD and caddy. I obtained those online, however, when
> I installed the HD, and attempt to install an OS, the computer reports
> that it sees a "Non-System Disk".
> I have spent quite some time on the HP website, and from what I can
> gather, this laptop requires some sort of system partition on the HD
> in order for it to be set up, and so forth.
> Would someone have any experience with this model of Armada, and be
> willing to share some knowledge with me about how to obtain the
> required files, and how to install them to the HD, when the computer
> says it does not even recongize it?
> I have flashed the BIOS, but it seemed to not do anything regarding my
> problem.
>
> Any help would be greatly appreciated! Thanks for your time.
>
> Chaser
The setup/diags program isn't necessary to detect a hard drive, the bios
will auto detect. The partition however is necessary if one wished to
change the boot order and such which could be your problem, i.e. after the
initial post scan of the cd and floppy drives do you see it attempt to read
either for a bootable disk?. If not power the system off, then, with all
three hands 😉 while powering on keep hitting fn-f11, you will see the
screen turn on, hear the pop from the audio like normal, then see the
screen flash and another audio pop a second time. This clears all the cmos
settings which will default it to the boot order of cd,floppy then hard
disk.

 

[Guest]

Archived from groups: alt.sys.pc-clone.compaq (More info?)

On Sat, 11 Sep 2004 13:00:50 +0000, Eugene <nospam@columbus.rr.com>
wrote:


>The setup/diags program isn't necessary to detect a hard drive, the bios
>will auto detect. The partition however is necessary if one wished to
>change the boot order and such which could be your problem, i.e. after the
>initial post scan of the cd and floppy drives do you see it attempt to read
>either for a bootable disk?. If not power the system off, then, with all
>three hands 😉 while powering on keep hitting fn-f11, you will see the
>screen turn on, hear the pop from the audio like normal, then see the
>screen flash and another audio pop a second time. This clears all the cmos
>settings which will default it to the boot order of cd,floppy then hard
>disk.

Most excellent advice, Eugene!! The Fn-F11 routine did the trick, and
now WinXP is flying along just fine.

That must be one of those un-documented things, because I sure did not
read it on the Website or in the repair manual I got on CD.

Anyways, Thank You Very MUCH !! 🙂

Chaser

 

[Eugene]

Archived from groups: alt.sys.pc-clone.compaq (More info?)

Mumbato wrote:

> On Sat, 11 Sep 2004 13:00:50 +0000, Eugene <nospam@columbus.rr.com>
> wrote:
>
>
>>The setup/diags program isn't necessary to detect a hard drive, the bios
>>will auto detect. The partition however is necessary if one wished to
>>change the boot order and such which could be your problem, i.e. after the
>>initial post scan of the cd and floppy drives do you see it attempt to
>>read
>>either for a bootable disk?. If not power the system off, then, with all
>>three hands 😉 while powering on keep hitting fn-f11, you will see the
>>screen turn on, hear the pop from the audio like normal, then see the
>>screen flash and another audio pop a second time. This clears all the
>>cmos settings which will default it to the boot order of cd,floppy then
>>hard disk.
>
> Most excellent advice, Eugene!! The Fn-F11 routine did the trick, and
> now WinXP is flying along just fine.
>
> That must be one of those un-documented things, because I sure did not
> read it on the Website or in the repair manual I got on CD.
>
> Anyways, Thank You Very MUCH !! 🙂
>
> Chaser
A few of those are documented. There was someone on here doing a FAQ and I
tried to submit some of those things but he never used any of them and his
FAQ seems to be pretty much Presario specific which doesn't have many of
these additional features.

Fn-ESC will display the bios version
Fn-F11 clears CMOS (not the boot password though, there is an additional
step for that)
Fn-T does a screen stretch (fit a 640-480 screen to 800x600 or 1024x768)

Those are the ones I still remember.