new drive causing power off

[Kerflumper]

I have a HP nx6125 laptop that had a 80GB hard drive in it. I got a WD3200BEVE drive to replace it (320GB). When I first installed it, I installed Windows 7 to see how it would go. It had some driver problems so I decided to go with XP (which is what I've always run on the laptop). Keeping in mind the Windows 7 ran ok for several hours, I am having a problem getting XP to run on it. I tried installing from the CD and half way through the laptop powers off. I tried restoring a disk image and during the restore, it powers off. I reinstalled Windows 7, just as a test, and it worked ok.

It doesn't seem to have anything to do specifically with XP, because during the restore, XP isn't running. I wouldn't think it's a problem with the BIOS because it works with Windows 7.

Any ideas on what is causing it to power off when trying to get XP installed?

 

[goombawaho]

Did you have a fully charged battery during installation???

The obvious question is: Could it be the DC jack on the laptop that is shorting out or malfunctioning and either shutting the PC down due to the short or causing it to switch over to a (drained) battery.

I guess it's not likely, but could you test the install with a fully charged battery and the AC adapter unhooked from the laptop???

 

[Kerflumper]

Battery is good, power is good. No problems with the power input. No loose connections.

I can't restore a Ghost image, I can't install Windows XP from CD. I was able to restore a XP BESR image and I can install Windows 7 from DVD.

It seems that the problem occurs when an older version of Windows attempts to write the boot sector. Since BESR (Backup Exec System Recovery) boots Server 2008 to write the image and Windows 7 is Windows 7, they're not having the problem. I'll have to try to restore my Ghost image to a smaller drive and then make a BESR image from it to put on the larger drive.

 

[kjv1611]

You might want to look at using a 3rd party boot manager, rather than the Windows manager(s). That way you might skip the issues you're having with these.

One that might take a little time to get used to, but it works really well, is Terabyte Unlimited Boot-It NG. And if you're only going to use Windows OSes, then you could look at using EasyBCD as another alternative.

 

[Kerflumper]

I did get XP running on it via the method I mentioned above, but after a while it started to flake out. I gave up on that idea and went with a very slick external drive. It actually worked out better because I can plug that drive into whatever computer I'm sitting at and then sync it with my backup drives at home.

 

[kjv1611]

Wow, I just realized that you had last posted a couple weeks ago on this one. Pays to pay attention after being out and away from everything (for the most part) for a couple weeks.

Well, glad to hear you did find a solution that worked for you, regardless.