OS not found problem on an HP

[ncg]

My buddy has a mATX HP box with C466, which starting showing the message that the OS was not found at bootup... Saw that the hdd was not showing in the bios and comfirmed that it was dead (not spinning). Replaced the drive with a new one and went through the HP install disks to restore the system. Drive is seen, format, and install happens... but on restart, same problem with OS not found! Harddrive is, however, recognized by bios.

Scratching my head a bit on this one... Any ideas on this highly appreciated!

 

[compudog]

Try booting to the HP recovery CD. Attempt a restore from there. Many times these retail machines (HP, Compaq, etc) will only work if you follow the process exactly as indicated in the recovery instructions. Some (Compaq expecially) install a non-dos partition on the drive that acts as the system BIOS. Good Luck!

 

[ncg]

Try booting to the HP recovery CD. Attempt a restore from there.

Exactly what I did...

Could it be an odd motherboard problem... ?