EBCD fails to find partitions on HP nz7400 laptop

Try: http://www.ultimatebootcd.com/

or try bootit-ng for partition work :
www.terabyteunlimited.com/       

Thanks for the response, The cd looks great, but still cannot detect any partitions has the same issue as the EBCD, i fear that HP might have gone all Nazi and have some sort of protection on the drive ?

any other ideas ?

Is there any option in bios that enable the Hide/Unhide partition? Check there, and try.

Hi Punky,

I have had a good dig in the Bios and cannot find such an option, there is a "drivelock passwords" option but its already disabled..

Thanks

Can you check what brand of the hard drive you have in system?

Unfortunately it doesnt look like there is this information in the Bios

You can remove the hard drive and id what brand of it.

thanks punky i will try that

Hi There, the drive is a Hitachi Travelstar, model hts541060g9sa00, 5400 rpm - Sata

reseat the drive into its bay, and then start computer. Upon booting, enter bios, and you should look for boot sequence to set boot from sata drive. Also, in bios, check the system detected the drive correctly size, model. Go this website and download diagnostic tool, drive fitness test (copy into floppy disk and start up computer with that floppy inserted, run the test see if any faulty or error might occurring). Mostly, if bios detects the drive correct, the drive should be ok.

If you are trying to reinstall or repair console, you will need to install sata controller for the motherboard in order to recognize the drive. I hope you have all drivers handy there.

Hi Punky, im not sure your answer directly relates to my question. The pc still boots fine to windows, but i cannot get past login as the password that no longer works, I used the ebcd and then ubcd to try and reset the admin password, but these two app's dont detect a partition, this is my issue.. either recovery CD cannot detect any drive partitions, im thinking its something to do with the HP protection.

Cheers

Are you familiar with BartPE? You can use it to check see if you can access the drive on the preinstall windows environment? Also, you might see link http://home.eunet.no/~pnordahl/ntpasswd/bootdisk.html

Thanks for your quick responses Punky, i am about to go home for the day, but will look at this tomorrow, thanks again for your help

after rereading the original post - i'm uncertain.
you say partitions are not shown by ubcd and others; but you say : single partition on the laptop.  So : where do the partitions show? also, how big is the partition you see? the drive is 60 Gb

ok i have tried Punkys last suggestion and it has the same issue as the other boot CD's they cannot see the any NTFS partition's, I know it only has one partition - because i built the machine a while back, and i can only see that partition once im in windows (which i cant do at the moment as i cant get past the logon password), im assuming there is some protection hiding the partition so CD's such as teh forementioned dont work... yes drive is 1 60gig partition

You might hard way to hook up that drive onto other system (this will require some adapter or usb adapter) see other system can see the drive? Is there any important data on that drive? if not, you could make an easy day to reinstall everything.

There, of course, some hacking to bypass the logon but that is not allowed in EE board. let not think about that.

Hi Punky, yes, theres a fair bit of data on the laptop, i do have a external enclosure that it may fit into, i Guess im using that as a last option, would really like to get past the password and resolve it that way, these other hacking tools that we cant mention here, any chance you could give me a hint to what they are - email 2.2stroker@gmail.com

Brettslater, please try resolve the problem within EE board, though. I think there will be other experts will see this post and give better idea and solution.

Try put the drive in enclosure and try first.

Hi, Thanks Punky, Ive just tried the enclosure and its not sata, therefore the plug is different, i really dont want to go an purchase a sata 2.5 inch enclosure just to fix this. Im not concerned as to how it get fixed (inside or outside EE), just need it fixed as my customer has been waiting for three days

another option... can anyone point me to a boot disk that i can use to boot to a cmd prompt ? i can get past it from there

Thanks Punky, i have managed to find a application called NThacker, a friend of mine told me it will work on the Sata drive, but the download site seems to be down and im searching for an alternate.

ok Its sorted  ... finally, the owner called ( he was away in the bush deer stalking and was incuminicado ) he apparently reset the password on friday and didnt tell his wife (who dropped off the laptop)... he added a . to the end of his password - thanks Punky for all your help ! you deserve the points so im going to award them to you

Oh man! this is nut, I hope you did not spending days with hot water. I am process engineer for an electronics manufacturing, and I understand the heat if there is no shipment to customer or less output production a day to report.

Thanks for the points.