Hello all, this is my first post.

I received this rather older HP Pavilion ze5000 in hopes to fix it because the laptop would boot fine until one day it would not boot to the operating system or boot to to the XP setup after copying files at all. The friend of mine who gave me this laptop told me that he had added a new Seagate Ultra-ATA 60 GB hard drive because the older one failed, so I knew that this new hard disk was fresh and didn't have any damage after testing it with other systems.

Well, here' the problem. I boot to the WinXP install disk as normal, and after it formats and copies the files, it asks to reboot, and so I do. BIOS acknowledges the presence of the hard drive, but setting the Hard Drive to Auto and rebooting just leaves a blinking white cursor on the top left corner of the screen, as well as setting the hard drive to "IDE Removable" (in which it is), then the words "Operating System not Found" show on the screen. Changing any of the boot priorities in the BIOS to anything other than:

Removable Devices
Hard Disk
CD-ROM
Built-In LAN

...just simply posts the words "Error loading Operating System" on the screen. I have read on the internet that if times like these come to be, then my BIOS may need to be flashed. Well, my PhoenixBIOS version KD.M1.02, has no updates online or any other updates even on the Hewlett Packard website, so I feel I'm SOL.

I think the Hard Disk Controller may be fried or the IDE cable might be corroded, but I still believe the problem can be fixed. But I have no way of checking, because removing the screws on the back of the laptop gives me no accessibility to the inside of the laptop, the motherboard, processor, etcetera. For now, here are the specifications for this Hewlett Packard Pavilion ze5000 notebook PC:

Intel P4 @ 2.00 GHz
Mobo Unknown
PhoenixBIOS KD.M1.02
Seagate 60 GB 16 Sector Ultra-ATA
512 mb RAM

If I could get some help off you all, then that would be great. I see a lot of similar threads over the world wide web, but almost all of the threads about the "Hard Drive" issues are resolved within the threads, but this laptop has been giving me hell for a while now, and I'd rather get it fixed without spending a dime on it rather than see it collect dust in the garage.

Thanks and cheers,
GoldenScimitar