Armada 1750 HD issues

I'm having problems booting a Armada 1750. I downloaded the diagnostic
disks from the HP/Compaq website and it reports problems writing to the HD.

I tried fdisking drive (removing both the C: drive's partition and that
tiny non-dos partition at the beginning) and just reformating it but fdisk
reports an error writing to disk so the fdisk changes never take effect.
I'd like to run scandisk on it but now the stupid thing will only boot to
the diagnostic partition.

It's only a 6 gig drive and I know we'll want to upgrade it anyway. Can I
just replace this drive with a 20 gig drive and install the OS? This is
the first Compaq laptop I've had to deal with. Is this diagnostic partition
really necessary?

Also, how to I switch boot devices?

There should be an Armada "Restore CD" to return to the OEM condition..

The following Manual might help:

http://wwss1pro.compaq.com/support/reference_library/viewdocument.asp?countrycode=&prodid=334|Armada+17 50&source=316216-003.xml&dt=264&docid=8669

Willard

Tony Rice wrote:

I'm having problems booting a Armada 1750. I downloaded the diagnostic
disks from the HP/Compaq website and it reports problems writing to the HD.

I tried fdisking drive (removing both the C: drive's partition and that
tiny non-dos partition at the beginning) and just reformating it but fdisk
reports an error writing to disk so the fdisk changes never take effect.
I'd like to run scandisk on it but now the stupid thing will only boot to
the diagnostic partition.

It's only a 6 gig drive and I know we'll want to upgrade it anyway. Can I
just replace this drive with a 20 gig drive and install the OS? This is
the first Compaq laptop I've had to deal with. Is this diagnostic partition
really necessary?

Also, how to I switch boot devices?

Tony Rice wrote:

I'm having problems booting a Armada 1750. I downloaded the diagnostic
disks from the HP/Compaq website and it reports problems writing to the
HD.

I tried fdisking drive (removing both the C: drive's partition and that
tiny non-dos partition at the beginning) and just reformating it but fdisk
reports an error writing to disk so the fdisk changes never take effect.
I'd like to run scandisk on it but now the stupid thing will only boot to
the diagnostic partition.

It's only a 6 gig drive and I know we'll want to upgrade it anyway. Can I
just replace this drive with a 20 gig drive and install the OS? This is
the first Compaq laptop I've had to deal with. Is this diagnostic
partition really necessary?

Also, how to I switch boot devices?

The diag partition is not necessary, however to change things such as the
boot order you can either run the setup from the diag partition or from
floppy (diag partition is faster, much faster). Try an fdisk/mbr and
remove all the partitions then try to install the diags. If that fails,
boot the diag floppy again, this time just run diags and not install. Go
to the disk test and run a scan and see what it says. Given the age of the
1700's/1750's I'd bet the drive is probabally failing. A 20G works in a
1700 fine without any drive overlay software, just make sure its running
the latest bios.