I recently hooked my laptops hard drive up to another computer through a USB adaptor to run a low level format on it because the high level format wasn't working. It all went smooth and I successfully created a new partition on the drive and it said the drive was healthy. When I put it back in the laptop, however, after the toshiba startup screen a DOS window comes up and says "Invalid disk drive; insert disk and press any key" or soemthing like that. I tried pressing all the F keys up top during the startup screen to get into the BIOS to boot from CD (i realize I need to run the windows recovery disk at this point) but it wont let me and the same thing keeps happening.
Why isn't the computer recognizing my hard drive, what can I do?

What is most likely happening, is that the hard drive is being detected, but since nothing is on it (aka there is no operating system installed on it), you are getting the "Invalid disk drive; insert disk and press any key" error. You are also getting this error because your laptop is most likely set to boot from your hard drive before the CD, which needs to be reversed in your case so that you can install Windows. The normal keys to enter the BIOS/SETUP are F1, F2, F10 and DEL. The ESC key is also sometimes used. If you are still unable to get into the BIOS/SETUP using the above-mentioned keys, then please post a reply here stating so and also give the Make & Model of your laptop and I help you figure out how to enter the BIOS/SETUP utility on your laptop.

Fenor

I can't enter the BIOS. None of the F keys do anything, except for F12, which freezes the startup screen. If I press escape it says "Press F1 for default setting, and when I do so it just starts over again.
It's a Toshiba Satellite 5005-S504. I truly appreciate your help.

Turn the laptop off. Then turn it back on and as soon as it starts to boot up, start hitting the F1 and F2 keys, alternating between the two, about once a second and you should get into SETUP.

Fenor

This is what I looked up for my model laptop, does this mean I can't run BIOS without having windows installed first? Did I screw myself by low-level formatting the disk?:

These are "legacy-free" models, and they do not incorporate a BIOS Setup program in the motherboard ROM. The only way to run BIOS Setup is using a Windows-based BIOS Setup utility called HWSetup. The HWSetup utility comes preinstalled on these Toshiba models, and it is also contained in the Toshiba Utilities package for these models, which can be downloaded from the Toshiba support Web site. To run HWSetup, open the Control Panel and double-click the HWSetup program. HWSetup provides a graphical front end for modifying BIOS settings. Note that if you change any settings, you may be required to restart the system.

F1/F2 alternating didnt work..still goes to the invalid disk DOS screen

nevermind, i got it to boot from CD finally. now it's formatting, i hope the format works, it gave me an error before I low level formatted it but hopefully now it will work. thanks, ill let you know.

Glad you got it working. What key(s) did you press to get it to boot from the CD?

Fenor