I recently aquired a Compaq Armada M700 and wiped the hard drive clean. I don't have any discs to this computer except the one that came with it to clean the hard drive. When it boots up it goes fro

Clear passwords General Armada things to try http://www.lanyoncomputers.com.au/corner/threadview.jsp?post=5867&thread=3974 http://www.lanyoncomputers.com.au/corner/threadview.jsp?post=7976&thread=3938 ....... Kill Cmos removes passwords on most computers http://www.utilitygeek.com/details.php?fileid=82 ........................................ All Support: at top in grey box pick a category type: armada m700 http://welcome.hp.com/country/us/en/support.html Manuals - most important, most info in Maintenance and Service guide http://h20000.www2.hp.com/bizsupport/TechSupport/DocumentIndex.jsp?contentType=SupportManual&locale=en_US&docIndexId=179111&taskId=101&prodTypeId=321957&prodSeriesId=96235

Sorry, I am new at this. The computer I aquired was an old corporate throw away. It was running Windows XP 2000 Pro among other things. The admin settings were blocking every step I took so I decided I would just wipe the entire hardrive clean and start from the beginning. I am starting to wonder if I did the right thing. The hard drive was erased and when I reboot now my first screen is the "Compaq" logo then in the bottom right hand corner it will flash "F12-Network Service Boot". Both this and the logo disappear and at the top left hand side of the screen it will flash "initializing intel boot agent version2.6 (build 004)". The next and final screen I get to shows "invalid system disk replace the disk, and then press any key" I don't have any discs for this computer. No manuals, no os other than windows xp pro for a dell. Please help. This is all new to me. I know there is a way... Just need someone to help me find it. I don't want to trash this laptop. I recently aquired a Compaq Armada M700 and wiped the hard drive clean. I don't have any discs to this computer except the one that came with it to clean the hard drive. When it boots up it goes fro

Why didn't you finish your original post. I replied with info about passwords because that's the most frequent request I get about Aramadas on another site I post at - someone bought an Armada cheap, only to find it's password protected (and often, stolen merchandise). The LAST thing a newby should do is re-format when they can't figure something out. Some people use re-formatting as way to solve problems, but it doesn't really solve anything if they didn't figure out what the problem was. It's a bigger waste of time than figuring out the problem, most of the time. I ALWAYS try to figure out what is wrong rather than do that. I started from scratch in the very beginning, when there was no internet to speak of, and have learned a great deal. This computer I have was loaded at the beginning of 2000 and I have NEVER needed to re-format it. "It was running Windows XP 2000 Pro among other things. The admin settings were blocking every step I took so I decided I would just wipe the entire hardrive clean and start from the beginning." You find out how to remove the administrator stuff. That's what you should have come here for, or to the Microsoft site, or elsewhere on the web. "...when I reboot now my first screen is the "Compaq" logo then in the bottom right hand corner it will flash "F12-Network Service Boot". Both this and the logo disappear and at the top left hand side of the screen it will flash "initializing intel boot agent version2.6 (build 004)......" Sounds like it is set up so you have the option of logging onto a network, probably a corporate network on this case, through a network card - there may get a setting in the bios to disable that, or it may be specifying a network boot before a floppy or hard drive boot - when it doesn't find a network connection, it continues on to the next thing listed in the bios boot squence - take a look in the bios. The boot agent would either be related to that, or a multiple boot utility that can boot several operating systems. If it is the latter, and you only want to boot one op. system, you need to disable it or remove it. In any case, both of these things can probably be left as is because it seems to eventualy perform a normal boot. "invalid system disk replace the disk, and then press any key" That means the bios can't find a bootable disk. When there is nothing on a hard drive partition that is supposed to be drive C, or the drive is formatted but is bootable but has no system files, you get this message. The hard drive must be formatted, it must be marked as bootable (active) by fdisk (it still will be if you didn't run Fdisk), and it must have at least the minimum system files on it for the opertating ststem you are using - this is easier with op systems before XP than it is with XP. If you insert a bootable floppy of any operating system at this point, if it has a floppy drive and that is turned on in the bios, the computer will boot with that, but that won't help if you don't know what you are doing. "I don't have any discs for this computer. No manuals, no os other than windows xp pro for a dell. " I showed you where the manual and support information is. Download the Service and Maintenance manual and print it out - on another computer if you have to. If you don't have any disks for this - " I don't have any discs to this computer except the one that came with it to clean the hard drive." - what do you mean by that? Is it a recovery disk, or what? first off - does this have a floppy drive? The first thing you need is an operating system. Then you may need to get drivers for the mboard and other components from the HP/Compaq site, if the operating system doesn't recognize everything and install all the needed support. You could try installing the Dell XP CD, but it may find this isn't a Dell and refuse to install. You must set your bios so that it boots the CD drive first, stick the XP CD in the drive then reboot with the XP CD inserted, and run Setup. If the Dell XP CD refuses to install, there may be a way around that, but you would have to dig around on the web to find that out. If that proves difficult, get a legitimate XP CD, or Win 98 or up CD. You will need a floppy drive, and a Windows Startup disk for the operating system you are going to use, if it is not XP. Win 98SE, probably ME, can boot from the CD drive too, but I haven't tried that.

Before you do anything rash, if you have not done anything to the hard drive since you formatted it, you can un-format it and restore it to the way it was, and figure out your problem rather than having to start over. If you have done something else, you can still try un-formatting it, and most of the data will be recoverable, but you will have to reload somethings, or remove the things that don't work. To do this you need an un-format utility. Norton System Works CD's have this ability, and if you set your bios to boot from a CD, you can boot with the System Works CD, and unformat your drive(s). You may know someone who has System Works. You should use a version that is, say, no more than 3 years old or so for restoring XP, or certainly newer than XP. There are other unformat utilities, but Norton has been doing this since the Dos only days. When you format, the data is not erased or deleted - the references to where the data is on the drive or on particular partition (if there is more than one on a disk) is just re-written, making all data areas of the drive available, and all new data writes over what is already there. Because of this, you can un-format after a format, and you will have 100% success if nothing has been written to the drive since you formatted. ........... Another thing that has occurred to me is - if this is a computer that was used by a business, why wasn't all of the data on the drive wiped off for security reasons, or at least all data to do with the business wiped? A drive that does not have such data wiped (not just deleted)can reveal data others shouldn't know about that business - it doesn't matter if it was deleted - if you know how to do it, at least some of the data can be recovered even if it was deleted. Did this computer have passwords on it you weren't able to get around? Even if that wasn't the case, did you see any data related to that business? If you had either of those situations, the computer is probably stolen, or someone was very stupid about how they disposed of the older computers. And why weren't the CD's that came with the computer given to you?

All I've been doing is reading and printing the manuals. I do not want to do anything like before. I bought this computer off a friend whom purchased it while out yard sale shopping in Georgia. It didn't even have a power cord to it. She knows even less than I about computers and couldn't get passed the passwords. She purchased a disc called "Compaq Laptop Boot CD" off of eBay. It stated that it would "secure erase" the hard drive, repartition drive in FAT32 (still don't know what that is), activates IDE CD-ROM drive automatically to let you load your os, included setup files for win95 and win98. I rebooted the system with the boot cd and now here I am. Another thing that has occurred to me is - if this is a computer that was used by a business, why wasn't all of the data on the drive wiped off for security reasons, or at least all data to do with the business wiped? I assumed it was a business computer because of all the network links and passwords. Never did see anything that would confirm that. So do you think I can undo what I've already done? I recently aquired a Compaq Armada M700 and wiped the hard drive clean. I don't have any discs to this computer except the one that came with it to clean the hard drive. When it boots up it goes fro

"She purchased a disc called "Compaq Laptop Boot CD" off of eBay. It stated that it would "secure erase" the hard drive, repartition drive in FAT32 (still don't know what that is), activates IDE CD-ROM drive automatically to let you load your os, included setup files for win95 and win98. " I would need a link to the exact same CD. FAT32 - FAT is File Allocation Table, a place on the beginning of any formatted disk before the data that you can normally see that keeps track of where your files are located. When you format a disk the first time, or it is formatted after that, all these entries are set to zero, or if you used format /s all entries are set to zero, then entries are made for the system files that are installed. - FAT32 is a newer version that allows the support of much larger hard drives than were previously supported. The total number of possible entries, and your bios, determines the maximum size of hard drive your computer will support. Are you sure you used this correctly? Did you read the install directions thuroughly? I need to know the state of your hard drive as it is now. It sounds like this CD didn't do much except re-format. If that's all it did, you may be able to un-format it. If you use an unformat utility you will know when the utility first analyzes the computer whether that's all it did, and what your chances of success are. Find yourself an unformat utility you can CD boot with, try it, and tell me what it says - don't let it do anything if it doesn't say you have 100% chance of success. If you can't find one or borrow one, BUY Norton System Works, which also has Norton Antivirus. You only need to use the Norton Utilities (including Unformat) on this once to rescue data for it to be worth the money, plus the Antivirus is good for a full year. ............ Going by ....... "Both this and the logo disappear and at the top left hand side of the screen it will flash "initializing intel boot agent version2.6 (build 004)......" If that IS a multiple operating system boot utility, or whatever it is, it may have interfered with the CD installation even if you did install it right. In that case you would have to remove that first, or do something else, then run the CD install again. That MIGHT work okay. I'm looking into this, will get back to you. It looks complicated. http://support.intel.com/support/network/adapter/pro100/bootagent/