missing hard drive

Hi all,been helping a friend with his acer extensa 5620z laptop running vista.
Problem was it kept rebooting,tried chkdsk but no good and start up repair,so i formatted the drive with g parted and then attempted to install windows xp,
but i keep getting this era {setup did not find any hard disk drives installed in your computer}Make sure any hard disk drives are powered on and properly connected to your computer,and that any disk-related hardware configuration is correct.This may involve running a manufacturer-supplied diagnostic or setup program.

Any help would be most appreciated.