Got a "new" hard drive off ebay for this old HP laptop I got. The previous 40 gb hdd went kaput, so I got this slightly used 100 gb. "Oh goody" I thought to myself.

Hah!

Mount drive into the laptop. Light flashes. Good.

Bios says "HDD?? What HDD??"

Huh. Change jumper position.

Nope.

Tried inserting Xp install disc. Everything went perfect, it recognized the drive and actually installed Windows. Then came the time to reboot, to finalize the installation. Reboot. Bios says "What HDD??"

Damn!

Quick online search says maybe I need to update the bios. Mmh. Sounds plausible.

Went to Hp.com and found my laptop model.

....

Turns out the utility they make you download to update the bios......

only works under Windows.