My new hard drive won\'t boot up!

fantasticmike

Honorable
Mar 10, 2013
1
0
10,510
Hi,
I installed a new 500GB 7200 HARD DRIVE into my Dell n7110 inspiron because I figured it was bad. It gets stuck while booting while saying "Please wait"....I've waited over 24 hours and still have nothing. I am a novice at best. None of the Dell diagnostics have turned up anything. Any advice would be appreciated.

Thanks, Mike
 

RealBeast

Titan
Moderator
So you installed the new drive, did you then install Windows clean from an installation disk, or are you trying to use your Dell recovery disks?

Recovery disks won't work if you are trying that, since they need the recovery partition that is on the original drive. If you do not have an install disk, go HERE and download the disk image for the same version of Windows 7 as you had installed and burn it to a DVD, then use that to install, and then activate with the key that is on your sticker on the computer.