DV7-6185us wont boot from hard drive.

I recently installed a new hard drive after the one it came with completely crashed. After installation of new hard drives, I inserted and installed all of the recovery disks needed for the new hard drive. Upon completetion it said it needed a restart and after restart I get a message saying I need a OS for the hard drive for boot up.
I went into my bios to make sure the hard drive was first in boot order which it is but when trying to pick where to put from on the bios screen it only give me the cd option. I ran a full diagnostic of the hard drive and everything checks out. I made sure to unplus the hard drive and tried a different slot and still get the same thing. Installation when fine but still won't boot from hard drive.
Is there something that i'm missing? The hard drive is fine. So what could it be?

Hi,
Assuming this is just a problem with the recovery media, here's an alternative option you could try.
Before trying the following, make sure you can still read the 25 Character Product Activation key on your Windows COA label ( 5 blocks of 5 alpha/numeric sets ).
An example of a COA Label can be seen Here.
You can create a Windows 7 installation disc yourself using another PC - just download the correct Disc Image ( this must be the same version that originally came with your notebook - this is listed as Windows 7 Home Premium ) from the link below and use an application such as ImgBurn to burn the ISO correctly to a blank DVD - a guide on using ImgBurn to write an ISO to a disc is Here. These Images are clean and from a well-respected source - Digital River.
Windows 7 Images.
Use the disc to perform the installation, enter the Windows activation key found on the COA Label when requested and when the installation has completed, use the 'Phone Method' detailed in the link below to activate the OS - this method supported by Microsoft and is popular with people who just want a clean installation of Windows 7 without the additional software load normally bundled with OEM installations.
http://www.kodyaz.com/articles/how-to-activate-windows-7-by-phone.aspx
Any additional drivers and software you may need can be found Here.
Regards,
DP-K
****Click the White thumb to say thanks****
****Please mark Accept As Solution if it solves your problem****
****I don't work for HP****
Microsoft MVP - Windows Experience

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Message was edited by: chubbs899

Hi chubbs899, and a warm welcome to the forums & Macdom!
i have read says you can go in through disk utility and partition the drive but i still have yet to see anything that says something about disk utility.
1. Insert the Mac OS X Install disc, then restart the computer while holding the C key.
2. When your computer finishes starting up from the disc, choose Disk Utility from the Installer menu. (In Mac OS X 10.4 or later, you must select your language first.)
*Important: Do not click Continue in the first screen of the Installer. If you do, you must restart from the disc again to access Disk Utility.*
How to format your disks...
http://www.kenstone.net/fcphomepage/partitioningtiger.html
Thanks to Pondini, Formatting, Partitioning, Verifying, and Repairing Disks...
http://web.me.com/pondini/AppleTips/DU.html
it gives you the option of doing "journal" format or "case sensitive, journal" format.
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i suspected jumper settings but when i read through the manual on the WD website it didnt seem to say anything about doing something specifically for apple. it had a jumper for slower transfer rate 1.5Gb/s
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Here is what I have:
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Core i5 2.7
4GB RAM
Mountain Lion
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When I try to boot from the hard drive I get the folder with the flashing question Mark. The Machine will start up from the OSX 10.4 installer disk.
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After restarting I still get the flashing question mark. If I leave the Install disk in the DVD drive the system will attempt to install again.
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instead of archive and install you might first want to try restoring your system using TM to some time point before your failed 10.5.1 upgrade. Then try upgrading to 10.5.1 again. I would suggest downloading the full 110 MB upgrade and installing it manually rather than doing it through the software upgrade menu.
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Kernal panic/ won't boot from hard drive or installation disc/ error type 1

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type 1346978644 error 1
type 1346978644 error 1
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When you did the boot off the original system disk was anything non-Apple externally connected? If not, then you clearly have a hardware problem, and your idea of examining the RAM is not half a bad idea. The only thing you might want to do before that is zapping the PRAM. Sometimes that clears issues such as you describe:
1. First determine if your machine is under 4 years old. If it is, then go ahead
and do step 2. Otherwise do step 3.
2. http://docs.info.apple.com/article.html?artnum=2238
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Thanks for the advice, doesn't seem to have worked though.

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