I have a laptop that is crushed with spyware. I have decided to cmpletely start fresh and reinstall windows. The problem is that i can't get it to boot from the dvd-rom at all. At first the BIOS did not see the drive at all. So i replaced it. Now the BIOS sees it. But i still can't get it to boot from any bootable CD i put in it. I have attached a USB dvd-rom and i get an error when trying to install windows from it, saying it can't find the hard drive. But i can still boot up into windows so i know the hard drive works. I was going to start the installation from windows, but i can't get that far before the laptop freezes. What's my next move guys? Thanks alot!

Have you checked the boot order to verify the optical disk is placed before the harddrive? You may also need to watch the screens at startup for a message that states to press any key to boot from CD.

You don't re-install Windows from Windows.
The standard way you do that is you boot from the regular XP CD, or if you are restoring the original HP software installation, you boot from a Recovery CD or the first CD in a Recovery CD set.

Windows Setup will not find SATA hard drives if it doesn't have the drivers built into it for the SATA controller(s) that are on the mboard, and if the bios Setup is set to have the SATA drive controller(s)/drives in other than IDE compatible mode.
In that case, the original HP software installation has the SATA drivers built into it, but a regular XP CD does not.
If you use a regular XP CD to install Windows, you either have to:
- set the bios Setup so the SATA controller is in IDE comptible mode, in which case your max data burst speed of the SATA drive will be 133mb/sec.
- or - you must connect a floppy drive to the laptop and have a floppy disk with the driver files for the SATA controller(s) on it, and press F6 early in the loading of the files from the Windows CD when prompted to provide SCSI drivers or similar. Only a few certain old USB connected floppy drives models that are no longer made are recognized by Setup, and USB drives and flash drives and driver files on a CD cannot be recognized at that early stage of Setup.

- or - you could restore the original HP software installation which has the SATA drivers built in, but you would need the single Recovery CD for the system model and an intact second partition on the hard drive with it's original HP data contents on it, or a complete set of Recovery CDs for your model, which either you made as you are supposed to do when the system was working fine and had the original HP software on it, or if you didn't do that, you order and buy from the HP site a Recovery CD set for your model if the set is still available, costing you about $50.
.....

Your laptop has a SATA drive and an Intel main chipset.
The SATA drive should be detected by regular XP CD's Setup no problem if the bios is set to have the SATA controller(s)/drive detection in IDE compatible mode.

If you want to use the drive in SATA (AHCI) mode later, upping it's max burst data speed rating to 150mb/sec for a SATA drive or 300mb/sec for a SATA-2 drive, you can load the Intel Matrix Storage Manager drivers later after Setup has finished - they are on the HP site in the software downloads for your model.
In the unlikely event you can connect a floppy drive to this computer, you would need to download a much smaller file from the Intel web site or the HP site for your chipset that makes a floppy with the proper driver files on it for SATA (AHCI) mode when you execute it.
HP lists it for your model under Operating System.....
as
Intel SATA AHCI Controller Driver

Whenever you load Windows from a regular Windows CD (or DVD) from scratch, after Setup is finished you must load the drivers for the mboard, particularly the main chipset drivers, in order for Windows to have the proper drivers for and information about your mboard hardware, including it's AGP or PCI-E, ACPI, and hard drive controller support. If you have the CD that came with the mboard, all the necessary drivers are on it. If you load drivers from the web, brand name system builders and mboard makers often DO NOT have the main chipset drivers listed in the downloads for your model - in that case you must go to the maker of the main chipset's web site, get the drivers, and load them.

I checked the HP site.
In your case, the main chipset drivers are listed, as Intel Chipset Installation Utility for ICH7.
On the Intel web site, they are listed as the Inf Update utility for your chipset.

I had similar problem that my BIOS was corrupted after installing Ubuntu on extra drive. It took me one week to figure out why I could not re-install XP using CD or DVD. Hack my computer was finicky in recognizing CD/DVD or HD, more so the former. I was so frustrated like you trying to re-install XP, but no good. I even flashed the BIOS and still not help. Finally, I did unthinkabe, but it worked.
Here is what I did (MY DESKTOP):
(1)*** MADE SURE I DO NOT HAVE ANY STATIC CHARGE ON ME ***, then
(2) REMOVED ALL THE CABLES external & internal that connect the COMPUTER (mouse, keypad, monitor, printer, etc..), Hard disk,CD/DVD, FLOPPY.
(3) REMOVED RAM
(4) REMOVED NETWORK CARD
(5) REMOVED GRAPHIC CARD
(6) REMOVED CMOS BATTERY AND THEN CLEARED THE CMOS/BIOS SETTING BY JUMPING THE JUMPERS.
(7) WAITED 30 MINUTES AFTER REMOVING THE CMOS BATTERY. [VERY IMPORTANT]
(8) PUT items in this sequence: graphic card, sound card, network card, DVD/CD cables, floppy cables (set hard disk to cable select (CS) for jumpers)
(9) MADE SURE THE CMOS JUMPER SETTING WAS "NORMAL"
(10) PUT THE CMOS BATTERY.
waited 5 minutes
(11) Plugged all external cables (i.e mouse, keypad, monitor, and main power supply).
(12) As soon as I plugged the main cable, I notced that my computer did not whirr the normal whirring that occurs during boot up.
(13) Then I pressed the start key.
(14) Waited until computer BIOS was automatically reset (I did not do anything, but just watched).
(15) VOILA! now my motherboard is completely recognized, BIOS set properly, was able to format hard disk, and then went on installing XP without a hitch.

NOTE: Since oyu have laptop, things may be somewhat different. I hope this guideline may help others who need to do a clean BIOS install/OS Install.

effient

Most of what you did was unnecessary.

Thanks for all the help guys.

tubesandwires- thank you for your detailed response. very thorough indeed. While i understand that you don't install windows xp from within windows i was having problems doing it the traditional way, which i thought i described. Just to be clear, i have installed windows xp on this laptop via regular windows xp cd without the use of any special drivers or cd's with sata support as you mentioned.

Othehill- you have helped me in the past, which i appreciate. I adjusted the BIOS to boot from the dvd-rom first. I also selected f8 and f10 on boot to specify the boot device. None of this worked. Even when i specified the boot device. I'm confused as to why. I even replaced the built in dvd-rom with another similar unit.

Here's how i corrected the problem.

I adjusted the BIOS to boot from the USB attached dvd-rom. i also disabled native sata support. I also set OS installation to start. I've never had to change that setting for a windows OS installation and i know not all BIOS have that setting, but i figured what the heck! I also set it back to finished after installation. I booted from the usb drive and was able to install windows normally.

Thanks for your help. Leave any comments, i will check back