Vista - Hp m9040n project

Hello All,

Yes, I'm a newbie to the forum and it is a tremendous site. I am so lost. I don't know where to post my question. So, please direct me. Many thanks, - Tim

I have a HP Pavillion M8150N with a quad core 2.4, (2)320 drives, upgraded to 4gbram (that was a waste) ... and ... its a great machine. I bought it 18 months ago and it fixed every problem I had with my old celeron 1.7 machine.

I bought a project pavillion M9040N desktop box with no hard drives. I bought an HP Restore Disc and moved my (1) unused 320 SATA drive from my 8150 to the other machine ... and expected to just restore vista and have a backup machine.

It wasn't quite that easy. After (20) tries, I <powered on>, <hit F10>, entered the setup program and made the HD the first device, made the CD the 3rd device, made the HD the first boot device, and set it to display the parameters as it loaded. I dont know if I said that right.

So then it displays the following and then ... stops .. hangs? ...

AMI Bios ...
Press F10 to run setup
Press ESC ...
Initializing ...
3072 ..
USB ...
SATA Port1 Samsung HD ...
SMART ok
Auto detect Sata 2
sata 2 CD ...
Auto detect USB device 1 generic
Auto detect USB device 2
Auto detect USB device 3
Auto detect USB device 4
04 USB Mass Storage devices found and configured

Thats it, then it stops scrolling or loading ...

Where do I go from here?

I have the restore disk in the CD.

I was expecting a prompt.

If I dont have the RESTORE CD in ... same result ... it hangs.

Thanks very much everybody.
Tim

If building a computer from scratch using an asus motherboard and a quad core 2.4 cpu, what is the setup procedure for loading vista?

Have you set your bios to boot from cd?

Hello Z3, Thanks for the reply.

It was set as the HD, but I changed it to the CD. via <F10> setup; <boot> tab; <priority> CD
Power down, power up and it stops at the same spot (after the 04 Mass Storage line).

Do you think it may be a bad CD drive.

When you mention you have your restore CD in do you mean the Vista disk or the backup image from the original computer?
You need to have a Vista disk in the drive for this to work.

Hello Roy, ... and thanks.

The machine had a vista license tag with a valid serial number. I bought a RESTORE CD from HP. It was about $13 and I got it in 3 days.

I never had this running so I don't have a backup disk. It was sold as a previously running machine without hard drives. It is extremely clean with no damage.

I put in a hard drive, hooked up a monitor, keyboard and mouse and did the setup in the bios. Thats where I'm at at this point.

Thanks
Tim

Take a look at the restore cd on your working computer using explorer.
Ensure that it includes all the files required to boot and is not just an image.

Thanks Roy.

You know,I have been calling it a RESTORE CD because I thought thats what I was buying. It is actually labeled:
"System Recovery
Windows - Vista Home Premium
All media provided for recovery purposes, do not separate this media or you may not be able to reinstall the operating system.
HP5014-0417

Is RECOVERYthe same as a RESTORE?

I'm a little afraid to pop this into my working machine for fear that it is going to take off on its own ... But, thanks. I'll check it out.

Roy,
Here is a jpg of the contents of the CD on the E: Drive.

Here is the contents of the BOOT Subdirectory.