Windows won't format! Having serious problems...

[Thalin]

I originally posted this in the wrong forum, sorry about that. Anyway.

I am having serious problems with my sisters machine. I've managed to get the Master set up as the hard drive and DVD as slave, but when I try and delete a partition, it tells me all of a sudden the hard drive can't be picked up. When I try and format the drive it hangs at 0%, and if I carry on with the boot process it tells me it can't find the operating system, which is because it's not even been installed, the format hung at 0% and I had to restart.
This is not a new drive, as I was using it on mine before the swap, but now it just dosn't work on either.

This is what's happening, and it also hangs at 0% during the format as well.

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v465/ThalinRPG/Misc/pctrouble003.jpg
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v465/ThalinRPG/Misc/pctrouble004.jpg
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v465/ThalinRPG/Misc/pctrouble005.jpg
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v465/ThalinRPG/Misc/pctrouble006.jpg
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v465/ThalinRPG/Misc/pctrouble007.jpg
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v465/ThalinRPG/Misc/pctrouble008.jpg
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v465/ThalinRPG/Misc/pctrouble009.jpg

 

[Jimbo420]

You should probably go to the manufactures site for that drive and download the bootable floppy test software. Run a the program and make sure there isn't anything wrong with the HDD. If it passes a lo of the time there is an option in there where you can write 0's to the whole drive. That should get rid of the partitions and allow you to format the drive in Windowsetup.

If you still have a Windows98 boot disk then you can try booting with that and using Fdisk to delete the partition (If you don't have a boot disk still check out this site). Then you should be able to create a new partition and format the drive. Assuming still of course that the drive is working properly.

 

[Thalin]

OK I give up.

My last hope was to connect up both HDs, boot up with the normal one with Windows XP, and then see if I can access the one that isn't working via My Computer or something, but it appears XP needs to be installed on both to boot up properly, am I correct? It just told me it can't find an operating system during boot up when I connect both of them.

I'm going to buy a new hard drive, thankfully they arn't too expensive these days.

And about the boot disk method, it dosn't ask me for the A drive during boot up eg. it dosn't ask me if it wants to boot from disk (unless the XP disk is in the DVD drive). I can't figure out how to use the boot disk anyway.

 

[Jimbo420]

And about the boot disk method, it dosn't ask me for the A drive during boot up eg. it dosn't ask me if it wants to boot from disk (unless the XP disk is in the DVD drive). I can't figure out how to use the boot disk anyway.

That means that you don't have your boot sequence set in your Bios properly. Good idea to always set to this order.

1. CD-Rom
2. Floppy
3. HDD

 

[Thalin]

Well i've managed to get it the dodgy drive to run whilst Windows is running (eg as a slave drive). Strange thing is, in the disk management utility it says the drive is running fine, with no problems. I think I managed to partition, but just like before, it hangs whilst formatting. http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v465/ThalinRPG/Misc/noformat.jpg

 

[Jimbo420]

Did you download the test utilities I suggested. You can may be able to get the drive working again if you do.

 

[Samstoned]

do that and try 3rd party formatting tools from a bootable cd.
there's a few free iso's you can get like the ultimate boot disc
so you have 1 hdd and 1 dvd rom in machine when this happens ,just to clearify

 

[saurabh chadha]

OK I give up.

My last hope was to connect up both HDs, boot up with the normal one with Windows XP, and then see if I can access the one that isn't working via My Computer or something, but it appears XP needs to be installed on both to boot up properly, am I correct? It just told me it can't find an operating system during boot up when I connect both of them.

I'm going to buy a new hard drive, thankfully they arn't too expensive these days.

And about the boot disk method, it dosn't ask me for the A drive during boot up eg. it dosn't ask me if it wants to boot from disk (unless the XP disk is in the DVD drive). I can't figure out how to use the boot disk anyway.

do these steps i think it will resolve the issue.
I also had this problem.

First connect your HDD as a slave to your working computer i hope you are using Win xp.
then go to the Disk management. type diskmgmt.msc from the run.
see wether it is detecting the slave HDD partitions or not.

If it is detecting the partitions then it's ok.
i hope that your HDD is fine.
then see the partition information in the top of the disk management.
make sure that the partition of your slave HDD is assined the drive letter.
if it is not assing them.
just right click your partitions and assing them the drive letter.

now you try to format the partition.

until unless your Hdd partitions are not assinged the drive letter. you can not see the partitions in the my computer, you can't open it, you can not format.

I think it has do something with the Disk signature which is made by your O/S.
i hope this will work.

 

[Thalin]

Just an update. Ran the Seagate diagnosis tool at bootup, ran all the tests, it told me nothing on the drive passes, some passed with errors, and the rest past with critical errors. It found hundreds of bad sectors, and when I tried to replace them all with 0's it failed on every one.

Can I officially say my HD is dead?

Also, I left the hard drive formatting over night. The progress bar moved, but when I woke up it said it cannot be formatted, and had failed. The problem is partitioning, I can delete a partition, but it will still show up, without a drive letter however, and then when I try and delete that partition it will tell me the drive failed or has disconnected. That's why I can't follow the steps of the most recent post, because the drive is assigned a letter, then I delete the partition and it isn't, then if I try to format that weird new partition it will fail and also not allow me to format.

 

[zorg]

Jup that drive is dead allright... dont use a drive with hundreds of bad sectors, that will only give you more pain in the end, even if you succeed to repair some of it.

 

[Samstoned]

if you can RMA it do so
if not you can try hard drive regen do google for it
I have bought back a few drives with this takes awhile to run but it works
if the drive hangs on this app it is foobar