New Blank Hard drive, System recovery disks won't work

[JustinJoseph93]

I have an HP pavillion a1079n Desktop. Frequent crashes prompted an change in the power supply and motherboard recently. A new hard drive was also recommended by an HP technician and ordered from the HP company. But, now the OS software needs to be installed. To install the software, I am using the system recovery disks. But, when prompted to insert the supplemental disk, I select the option to reset to factory settings, click next and then wait. I'm usually patient when it comes to computers but after an hour or so of waiting, 0% progress left me a little unnerved. nothing happens. Nothing happened for about an hour. The reformatting process remained at 0%, so I restarted the whole process, this time noticing that about a minute or so after inserting the supplemental disk, the computer seems to stop responding. I'm not an expert with computers, but I know about enough to get around. Moving the mouse didn't work. It seemed as if it was frozen. I also pressed the NumLock button to see if the light indicating that it is on would turn off. At first nothing happened, but about a minute or so later, the light would turn off. Then the mouse would have been moved from the position I saw it in, POSSIBLY indicating that it isn't COMPLETELY frozen, just periodic? I know the OS can be installed with the system recovery disks as long as the new HD is from HP, which, I repeat, it is. Any help in installing vista onto this blank HD will be greatly appreciated.

[xenmaster31]

I have the exact same problem, the PC works fine otherwise and I was able to install Ubuntu Linux on it and run most everything including much windows software using WINE. However I am completely unable to reinstall windows. My original HD and CD/DVD rom that my PC came with were junk. The CD/DVD rom would hang constantly and the HD that it came with was from a bad generation of HDs. So I replace the CD/DVD with a pioneer CD/DVD and the HD is just a newer generation of the same one that I had before. Whats up? It should just install but it has problems and freezes at the beginning of the install process and sits at 0%

[milesrf]

Looks like you both missed one step I remember from when my hard drive was replaced.  If the new hard drive is a model for which the system recovery disks do not include a suitable driver, at some stage early in the recovery process (details forgotten), you need to install a driver for your new model of hard drive, then let the system recovery disks continue.

[Big_Dave]

Boot up into the bios (setup) and look to see if the bios recognizes the hard drive.  How big is the new hard drive and how big was your old hard drive?

[CherylG]

Sounds like XP Media Center Edition is the OS you are trying to reinstall? I have seen many problems reported with it being reinstalled on even the original hdd.

[tieronetech]

When replacing the motherboard on any HP computer, a software called a DMI utility, or also called a tattoo utility, must be run. Then, on many units, another DMI utility to tattoo the hard drive must be run. You need to find an HP certified technician in your area to run these programs as they are not available to the general public.