[eawoodall]

You overlook that he has the original cd-rom disk.
The original cd often includes fdisk (and dos) and it is bootable.

If the hard drive is not reformatting or reghosting, matters cannot be made worse, formatting will NEVER work until the partitions are correct! Period.
If you do not choose the conditions of fdisk the most recent versions of fdisk partition correctly by itself. Just type fdisk c:

What could be wrong:
1.the laptop could have a battery that is bad.
Lost hard drive information in setup, so needs to run setup in rom with manufacture hard drive information (cylinders,etc), AFTER having new battery placed in computer.
2. laptop (hard drive) was dropped, and physically is in need of replacement.
Go to computer store and have them install another hard drive. (or do yourself)
3.hard drive lost partition information due to virus, or other temp condition?
Fdisk c:
Afterward type
Format c:
4. other or unknown problem.
Pay technical service at computer store to find and fix problem.

I recommend option 4. cheap enough, will work after it is done, maybe they will even find problem was one of the other 3.

You see the fact that it HAD a working partition does not matter! What matters is NOW it won't even allow a reghosting. Before it worked fine, it had a partitioned formatted hard drive, then poof, nothing worked. Fdisk will clear whatever space you need on a hard drive. The person said they think they need more room on the hard drive before it will allow the original software back on. Fdisk will remove all the clutter from the hard drive, and then reformat will clear the hard drive for further use. Fdisk will not care how full the hard drive is now, it will remove all. I still recommend option 4. but from what the person said who asked the problem fdisk is the best self help step they can take to ensure it is not an fdisk fixable problem. If it won't format or reghost then the problem has to be with; fdisk, no room for reghost, lost rom hard drive info, bad hard drive, other technical problem not obvious. Experts discussing it will not change the fact that fdisk is a via option, and may fix the problem. That some refuse to understand that does not impress me. Perhaps you do not know what fdisk actually does, or what format does, I hold multiple degrees in electronics, and have trained/worked in governmental facilities.

[ScottGem]

No I did not overlook that he has the original CD since that was never stated. What he said was he had the Recovery CDs. That's not the same thing.

There has been not been sufficient indication that the drive is not reformatting or why its not. That's why jumping the gun here is wrong. Nor is their any indication that there is a problem with partitions. If the drive partition was bad, then the drive would not appear to the PC as a system drive so there would be a non system disk message

1) I agree that its possible that the CMOS lost its info so its not recognizing the drives. I had asked earlier if he can get into the CMOS setup partially for that reason. But there is no indication of battery problems, The machine wouldn't power on at all in that case.

2) It is possible the hard drive has been physically damaged, but again, we do not have sufficient info to make that determination.

3) Remotely possible, but that gets back to issues of what version of Windows and how to get to a command prompt to run FDisk

4) There could be several other possibilities, some of which require a tech to service the machine others that he might be able to work through himself. The key is we NEED more info to make a diagnoses. Just throwing out loads of possibilities, many of them remote, doesn't really help. Both the asker and we are better served by getting more info so we can make a better diagnoses and offer potential solutions.

[ScottGem]

Hi
I have a problem with my laptop.

Val,

Please do not be concerned about the extraneous discussions going on here. They have nothing to do with you personally. We do want to help you and we may be able to help if you return and provide us with more info. I do not believe we have enough info yet to make a reasonable diagnoses and provide viable solutions. It may turn out some of the solutions offered will work, or it may be something totally different. Until we get more info, its hard to tell.