Recover cds not loading on Compaq Presario SR2180NX [ Edited ]

[Rkaske]

     Hi all, I recently had a hard drive go bad in my Presario SR2180NX. I had thought it to be a windows problem at first but after several failed recoveries I was told to run a check on all the hardware. The hdd failed several of the tests so I purchased a new hdd. I was told to buy a larger one if possible so I bought a 500g instead of the 250g that came from the factory. My problem now is the recovery disks will not load anything. 

     I followed the directions that came with the recovery disks and disconnected the new graphics card and ram that I have installed in my pc. I went into the BIOS and selected for the cd drive to boot first as the instructions said and when placing the disk in my computer it displays the compaq logo and the disk drive activity light flashes and the screen goes black. After about 30 secs of flashing the activity light goes off and the screen simply remains black.

     I have tried hitting escape and selecting the cd drive and I receive the same thing, black screen with several seconds of activity light on the drive then nothing. I have also tried hitting f11 repeatedly but this causes nothing to happen and I receive the same outcome. After searching through the HP technical support area I found this area on the drive not recognizing the disk, 

 http://h10025.www1.hp.com/ewfrf/wc/document?docname=c00881405&tmp_task=solveCategory&cc=us&dlc=en&la...

which says that my disk drive may need updated firmware to read the recovery disk.

     HP is not showing any firmware updates for my cd drive. The BIOS shows that there is one update available but when I put it onto a usb drive and try to boot from the usb I receive the same black screen and no activity. I just received the disks today so the disks themselves could be bad but if at all possible I would like to avoid another week long wait on recovery disks. Any help would be much appreciated.

[CherylG]

Have you checked in BIOS to be sure the new hdd is recognized?

Bad ram can cause this, try swapping the sticks you have.

Bad/flaky CD/DVD drive may not be able to read the disks fast enough to boot from them.If you have a drive you can borrow from another machine try it.You don't have to go through the whole install, just remove the cables from the back of the one in there and plug ito the other drive.I have done this by laying the PC on its side to balance the cd/dvd drive without actually installing it.

[Rkaske]

     Thanks for the fast response! The hdd is detected in the BIOS and I even ran both the short and extended SMART self-tests. Both passed with no errors.  I tried like you suggested and swapped the ram out to no avail, I also tried leaving the upgraded ram in and running both sets that I have and received the same result.  I don't currently have access to another cd drive to try your other suggestion. I will see if I can find a way to try that and report back on whether that worked or not. In the meantime is there anything that I can do to test whether or not my cd drive is working correctly? Bearing in mind that I only have access to BIOS.

[CherylG]

To test the cd/dvd drive if you have a Windows cd or other bootable disk such as a utility cd try to boot from it. If you don't have one you can download and burn a utilty cd.Get Partition Wizard Bootable cd ISO and ImgBurn to burn the image to cd and try booting from it.

[Rkaske]

     OK, narrowed it down I think. I was able to get a hold of another dvd drive and plugged that one into my computer, checked in BIOS to make sure it was detected and it showed everything as it should. When I put the disk in and tried to boot from disk I got the error saying could not boot from disk insert windows disk and press enter. This error came up every time I tried to boot from the disk with the extra dvd player. When I try in the pc's original dvd player I continue to get the blank screen. So from where I sit now I think I may have received bad recovery disks. Would that be a safe assumption at this point? I am still waiting to receive a call from the company I purchased the recovery disks from but I'm guessing that could take until sometime Monday.

[CherylG]

 I agree, appears to be a bad Recovery set.

[Rkaske]

Well I suppose I'll wait a couple days for another set. Thank you for your help, I'll keep checking here in case anyone has another idea for me to try otherwise I'll update when I get another set of disks.