I have a used Compaq EVO n800v. I can install and run Windows 2000 on two different 6gb hard drives. When I try to install on a 30 and a 40gb hard drive the installation cd sees the whole 30 or 40gbs and loads onto the hard drive but when a reboot is needed to complete the installation it will not boot the hard drive. I have also tried installing Linux. Same thing. It will load and boot from the 6gb but when trying to boot from the larger ones I get an error 18. Looking around I found that this means the bios can not see anything bigger than a 8gb hard drive. These units were originally shipped with 20 to 60gb hard drives. I tried to reset the bios/cmos by removing the cmos battery for 48hours. I have flashed the bios with the latest version but still no change. Any help or suggestion would be greatly appreciated.

Compaq Evo Notebook N800v - North America/U.S. QuickSpecs confirms it shipped originally with up to 60 GB drive. So, verify BIOS setup has LBA mode enabled for hard disk.

It has the most limited bios settings that I have seen. There is no option to enable LBA mode. Can't figure out how it must have had a bigger hard drive at one time and now will only see small ones.

This HP support document discusses an 8 GB limitation with hard drives larger than 8 GB installed in Multibay. Is that your configuration? If so, you need BIOS F.1B or later.

I'm using a later bios than discussed there. The download is a later version and the later version shows up in the system info.
It's F.24 . Wish I could find the version listed there. Might solve the problem.

Have you talked to HP support?

HPSupport says it's out of warranty. Take it to an authorized dealer. Big help they were.

The F.1C BIOS on HP's website lists "Fixes error where FDISK could only see 8GB of 40GB and 60GB in the Multibay Hard Drive" as a fix. Sometimes old bugs work their way back into newer builds, have you tried that BIOS?

I can not find any bios version to download except the latest.

Are you on non U.S. site?

HP Website > Search field at top of page "evo N800v" > Product Quick Links "Software and Driver Downloads" > Microsoft Windows XP Professional > BIOS

That looks like what I need but it creates a bootable disk. I do not have a floppy drive. Do you know if it's possible to make a bootable cd from something like this? I know how to burn a iso file and create a bootable cd.
Thanks for all your help.

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Originally Posted by zeusters

Do you know if it's possible to make a bootable cd from something like this?

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I keep a USB floppy drive for situations like this. I've attached a .ZIP file containing all of the files on the floppy that is created by the HP diskette creator. I had to name it with a .PDF extension to get this site to upload it as it was over the size limit for .ZIP files. Rename it FLOPPY.ZIP. I would guess the files could go on a CD just as easily although I've never tried doing it that way. I'm also not going to hold my breath that this BIOS version will be the fix. I suspect you'll need to take the laptop to a HP dealer.