If the hard drive failure was caused by a power surge (or a sudden power 
supply failure), there could be a number of other components that were 
also affected. When the computer first starts, try to get into the BIOS 
and see if the drives are recognized. You may need a new motherboard and 
maybe even other parts. Otherwise, at a minimum, the floppy drive should 
be recognized and usable. Double check the data cable and power connection.

If the drives are not recognized, I would consider disconnecting 
everything from the motherboard except CPU & RAM. Leaving the keyboard 
and monitor connected, I would then determine if the initial POST is 
successfully completed. If it does not POST, I would disconnect 
everything and rebuild the computer one component at a time with testing 
at each step. There are several sites on line concerning building a 
computer that will take you through it one step at a time. It takes time 
but sometimes it is the only way to find a problem component.

I hope this helps.

Tom Mayer

Christopher Gagné wrote:
> Here is the problem. I have a HP Pavillion 553w. The hard drive went on it
> and today I replaced it with a used one that had Win 98 on it. Because the
> new hard drive had all kinds of junk on it I used the FDisk utility to clean
> everything off from it. My overall plan is to install Windows Server 2003
> software. The problem at hand is that neither the floppy drive or CD-ROM
> drive are being read. If I place my WinXP home CD in and turn on the
> computer it quickly shows the HP logo and then goes to a black screen with
> just a cursor in the upper left hand corner of the screen. I have also tried
> using a MS-DOS v6 floppy and a WinXP boot floppy and get the same result.
>
>  
>
> The question: how do I go about formatting the hard drive now?
>
>  
>
> Thank you in advance for those who respond!!
>
>  
>
> Chris
>
>  
>
>  
>
>  
>
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> Christopher J. Gagné 
> Deputy Director of Operations
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