A friend wiped the hp/NTFS file structure off my Pavillion a1660n when he installed Ubuntu on my pc. I wiped the drive and installed a full, legal version of XP Pro. I now have a new hard drive I would like to install. hp tech support told me I could use the recovery disks I bought from them with the new hard drive. However, when I boot with the first recovery disc, it just goes to class blank/black screen with cursor in top left corner. Why won't it work? Do I need to do something else? Is it because the OS changed and something in the bios or hardware config won't recognize the original hp recovery disks?

azmawdi, "Is it because the OS changed and something in the bios or hardware config won't recognize the original hp recovery disks?" I'd say yes. Seems to me you oughta be able to use the 'add hardware' wizard to do what you want. HTH. Ed in Texas.

Sorry, it was late and brain cells were already fried due to frustration. I realized I didn't explain all details clearly. The recovery CD is for XP Media Center. I was actually planning to replace the primary hard drive, not add the new one as a slave, and try to use the XP Media Center recovery CD as the system came with other software the kids wanted. Maybe reverting from XP Prof to Media Ctr is a bad idea anyway or I should go about this differently. Definitely want to wipe the dual boot partition anyway, as it's not being used. Thx

If you are booting to a CD or DVD it either works or it doesn't. It has nothing to do with the way the planets align or your current OS. Try them on another system just to see if they boot to the installer. If so your system may need repair. If not disks may be bad. "Best Practices", Event viewer, host file, perfmon, antivirus, anti-spyware, Live CD's, backups, are in my top 10