Just wondering if this happened on an HP laptop?
no.
as much as i don’t like my hp laptop, that’s the pc i’m using to communicate with you now.
my new desktop is a game pc with vista ultimate.
i have vista ultimate cd.
Preloaded Vista crashed in my sister's laptop I tried to fix but ended up installing Windows XP Professional. I Google "HP Pavilion DV6626US" and found http://www.howtogeek.com/howto/windows/resolving-setup-did-not-find-any-hard-disk-drives-during-windows-xp-installation/, carefully followed the step-by-step instruction. My sister now happily using her laptop she no longer wait 15 minutes for Vista to boot. There are various postings at HP Business Support forum...