Question

Can't reinstall Vista after XP. CD drive will not work.

dv9208nr, reinstall vista, cd/dvd drive wont boot, xp to vista, laptop stop working after xp install

I have a Pavilion dv9208nr and erased vista to install xp. I learned afterward that xp will not work on this computer because it is not compatible with the hardware, or maybe I should say the hardware is not compatible with xp. One piece of hardware being the CD/DVD drive; It stopped working almost immediately after installing xp. I have tried to reinstall vista but with no luck. Like a dummy, I erased the D drive that contains the vista restore, but I have the DVD restore disks and while they do spin in the drive, the computer will not boot up from CD/DVD drive. I have tried other DVD's CD's but nothing will work. I have also used the esc. and f10 keys, entered bios and set boot order. I even got a new hard drive and another cd/dvd drive and still no luck. does anyone have another idea?? Also, I did HP, they had me do everything I have already done, no new ideas from there. (surprise surprise)

I would greatly appreciate any ideas. thank you.

Check that the cd drive is still connected to the ide cable and that the cable is connected to the board - tightly. The drive will still spin up if it is not connected to anything other than power.

The CD-ROM should have three types of cables connected to it. Start first with the smallest of the three types of cables, the CD-ROM audio cable (or sound card cable). When connecting this cable to the CD-ROM drive it should be a 3 or 4 pin cable connection (see above picture). Verify that the location that you are connecting this cable to is NOT the jumpers on the back of the drive; while it may be possible for the cable to connect to these pins, this could cause additional issues.

Next, connect the 40-pin IDE/EIDE interface cable (large gray ribbon cable) to the back of the CD-ROM drive. This cable will generally have one side of the cable that is red or blue indicating PIN 1. This side of the cable almost always points to where the power connects to the CD-ROM drive.

Finally, connect the power cable to the back of the CD-ROM drive. This cable is generally keyed therefore should only connect to the computer one-way.

Once the computer cables have been connected to the back of the CD-ROM drive, connect the opposite ends of the IDE/EIDE interface cable and the audio cable to their appropriate locations. The audio cable will generally connect to one of the following locations: Sound Card / Motherboard (when onboard sound present) / DVD decoder card.

I doubt this is related to your vista install. Where are you getting hung up on that?