Help!!!!

[cgdosborn]

TABLET PC HELP ANYONE??
I have a Tatung/RM TTAB-A12D Tablet PC (AKA Electrovaya Scribbler SC 3100), the same as the ones seen throughout secondary schools in England. It has a 60Gb IDE 2.5inch HDD, 1.25Gb RAM and a 1.6Ghz Intel Centrino Processor. It came preinstalled with Windows XP Tablet, of which I have a Tatung CD. The Hard Drive has just died after about 2 years use, and I have ordered an identical replacement. I have a USB to IDE adapter that I used to format and wipe the drive from a desktop PC before it died and then I put the drive back in, together with a USB keyboard and an old CDRW drive, connected via the USB adapter, with the XP disc in order to reinstall the OS. In the past, the tablet has booted off this drive and I have had the "Press any key to enter setup" Now, I just have a screen with a flashing cursor and nothing else. The CD drive starts up and spins, and is sometimes detected by the BIOS, but I cannot get the CD to boot into XP setup. So essentially, I have a tablet, awaiting a new hard drive and an XP Tablet CD but am unable to put everything back together again. Any help of any sort would be most greatly appreciated. I feel totally lost here.

[Steve S]

cg: Your description of events is a little confusing:

<<...The Hard Drive...died after...2 years use, and I have ordered an identical replacement...>>

...OK; your original HD died and you ordered... or have... a replacement 60 GB, 2.5" HD...

<<...I have a USB to IDE adapter that I used to format and wipe the drive from a desktop PC before it died and then I put the drive back in...>>

...What HD did you format...??? And which HD died...? If it was dead, why did you re-install it?

Please clarify what you're trying to do here and we might be able to offer you some advice...

[cgdosborn]

Sorry, I got a bit carried away there. The original problem was the PC would not start properly after a power cut. Wanting a clean install anyway, I removed the hard drive and connected it to another PC via a USB adapter to wipe and re-format it. About 2 days after installing, the drive completely packed up, will not start and so I have ordered a replacement. So my problem is how do I reinstall XP tablet onto the new hard drive when it arrives? I have never had a problem doing this with other PC's, just my Tablet.
Apologies for any confusion caused.

[Steve S]

OK. Let's see if I understand:

<<...The original problem was the PC would not start properly after a power cut...>>

...The tablet wouldn't start-up properly after a power interruption during routine operation? This could be a corrupted boot file...

<<...I removed the hard drive and connected it to another PC via a USB adapter to wipe and re-format it...>>

...OK; removed the HD from the tablet, reformatted it. Then you reinstalled it in the tablet and restored the OEM OS image via the "old CDRW" optical drive that you mentioned in your original post? Presumably, the restoration appeared to go OK?

<<...About 2 days after installing, the drive completely packed up...>>

...Then things went completely south. Since you have the USB-to-IDE adapter, did you try removing the original HD from the tablet and running any diagnostics on that HD via you "other PC?"

<<...So my problem is how do I reinstall XP tablet onto the new hard drive when it arrives?..>>

...Well, I'd use your adapter to format the new HD via your "other PC," then install the HD in your tablet and run the recovery media using your "old CDRW" optical drive (which you indicate has worked for this purpose in the past...). This seems straightforward to me. Am I still missing something...???

<<...I have never had a problem doing this with other PC...>>

...Since you (apparently) haven't yet tried to install the new HD, what problem are you referring to? It sounds like the old HD simply failed, in which case subsequent problems would be expected... It wouldn't be a "tablet" thing at all...