Help I have a compaq armada 7400 when i try to install the diagnostic utilitys i get a no rom on hd message i can use the setup utility but cannot install it also when i try to install win 98 the installation hangs up when i try to install win2000 the os goes through the hd format and partition etc then the laptop restarts and the instalation starts over

hi
be sure in bios setup it does not have anti-virus enabled.
I have no idea on win2000. win98 will not install if the hdd was not fdisk and formated to fat32, win2000 likely put the fat as NTSF.

it may be helpful to know why you had to format the hdd ? What is the "diagnostic utilitys" use for? it may be posible that it wants to be install on a non dos partition, if the utility is from compaq. it should have a readme file to tell you what to do.
When do you get the " no rom on hd message"?

I get the no room on hd when I try to install the diag on the hd which has to be installed so the bios set can be installed
I tried to install the diag on the hd when it wasn't formated Iv'e even reset the cmos and flashed the bios when I try to install win 98 it hangs up at 7% installed I ran a scandisk and found a cbad cluster that was repaired but its still no go the disk was not formated as ntfs and there is no anti virus in the bios the laptop came with the hd formated in fat32 and was whiped clean with kill disk in an attempt to remove anything that might interfere with the os installation if you have any input please respond Thanks

the hdd needs 2 partitions ,the second partition needs to be about 14mb for the diag program. the 1st would be the (hdd size - 14 mb) for the OS and set active.
If you do not have a manual for the comp , get one from compaq it will diffenenty help. should find one to download in a pdf format.

I got the diagnostic loaded on the second partition but still having same problem wont't load Win 2000 and as we speak Win 98 is hung up a 7% file copy progress any suggestions?????

dont know about win2000 but for 98 try makeing a folder on c: and copying the cd's WIN directory to it. then run install from the hdd.
if you do not know how see the HowTo section at
http://www.mesich.com/
you could have a bad or dirty cd drive.

hey topfarmer I tried to copy the win dir to the hd and got a lot of copy erors do you think the cdrom is bad???

if I'm not wrong the error message normaly indcates if it is a read or write error. If it is a read error it could be a bad or DIRTy cd or cd drive.
to help pinpoint the error could try copying some files off the win2000 cd and some files off the floppy disk.
1) if can only copy from floppy --cd drive problems try cleaning cd drive
2)if problem only win98 cd--clean cd
3)if problems on all attempts could be hdd or memory problems --run memory test -download utility from hdd web site and test drive.