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Cannot restore Compaq Presario CQ57 with disks
I recieved a new Compaq Presario CQ57 notebook from my father-in-law who never used it. Unfortunately it had a bad hard drive right out of the box. Years had passed so no warranty. I replaced the HD with another of the same. The computer came with the disks so I thought this would be simple but alas as many things in my life things didn't go as planned. The disks supplied are the 2 disk version. The computer came with Windows 7 Home Premium installed. When starting the disks by rebooting the computer the top of the black screen says "starting Windows 98" and further down the same page it says "Error: unable to detect... ADAPI IDE CD-ROM device driver not loaded". Seems to load anyway and start up well with disk one but when it gets to the point that it asks if I have the 1 or 2 disk version I hit 2 and immediately it asks me to insert disk 2. Before doing so an error flashes up in the bottom left corner that says "no files found. Invalid drive specification". I obey and insert disk 2 but nothing happens except for flashing the same message. In a nutshell - no restore.
I've searched the net for days trying to find and answer and came up with ideas but nothing specific. I have run all the Bios tests and all come out working well. Boot order is cd/dvd room first. I downloaded a copy of Windows 7 onto an external drive but I can't get the CQ57 to read it even after changing the boot order. Also downloaded the drivers for the CD-rom but can't load that either. I have an old copy of Windows 2000 that I tried just to see what it would do and it actually loaded it but it would never start up. Didn't expect it too but it at least showed the CD-rom was working. I've hit every F-keys a million times and can't come up with anything that works.
I'm ready to throw this computer out the window (no pun intended) so any advice you can give would be greatly appreciated. I am not a computer wiz so if you have something I need to do that required CC+ or higher you'd better talk me through it.
Thank you
Last edited by WallyGator; 11 Feb 2015 at 23:23.