[jasah]

Hey everyone, I'm in need of a little help here. I'm trying to install a new hard drive in my Dell Inspiron 1100 laptop. I've gotten it in and out several times without a hitch (for various reasons i couldn't finish installing it right away) but this past time it went in correctly, however the computer didn't start up the way it did the other times. It would normally come up with the dell startup screen, then a black screen with some info about the laptop and then I could stick the XP cd in to try and install it. But all I got after the Dell start up screen was a black screen with a blinking curser. And it didn't do anything else, even when i tried pressing enter. Does anyone have any clue what's going on??
oh, when i put the old hard drive back in, it works fine. I'm very confused. :normal:

[xZoDiACx]

Faulty hard drive or something not hooked up correctly would be my only guess.

When I have problems like this I usually go to a local computer place and they're nice enough to let me play with things to see if I have a defective product.

[mctw]

you need to set your cd/dvd drive as your 1st boot device. currently its trying to boot of your hard drive, which when you put the new hdd in, has nothing to boot from.