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trying to help another wikiwirral member sort their laptop out
The laptop had no working dvd but I've put another in I was given by another wiki member
I've backed up the hard drive to another usb hard drive via another pc.(approx. 56 gigabytes)
The laptop hd has now been formatted and when I try to install xp it reads the xp cd so far then says there is no hd.
I thought - get into the bios to recognize it, but it wants a password first which we don't know.
Have heard about taking the watch type battery out to reset the bios but laptop knowledge only goes as far as unscrewing a few screws on the back and looking.
I think this battery may be under the keyboard where I don't want to try.
Is there a bootable cd software option?

This a favour for them and no money will be paid

Is it a Toshiba if so look on line there is a way of doing it without battery removal

what make / model number ?

All I can see on it is model FL91 - no other names

Normally the bios does not need to be changed if its like for like.

Was the previous operating system xp ??
As I think xp disc is not recognising the drivers required to see your hard drive.

There is a chance the Dvd drive is also set to master and blocking it to be seen as there are two master drives.

The bios is a red herring for me until you can give us more info.

Hi, I think what you have is a rm nb4300 note book, if it is this the default password is rm or rmplc.
If your lucky it won't have been changed, if it has you can reset it using a jumper in the memory compartment.

Bios still needs a password
but
Mark's suggestion "xp disc is not recognising the drivers required to see your hard drive" made me try to install Vista and that worked.
Laptop now up and running

Well done derek , your 'wiki' friend will be pleased .......