Hi, i'm trying to format my dads Acer computer that is getting rather old and clogged up with crap and virus's. I've formatted many a computer and re-installed Windows before so i know what i'm doing.

When i put in the Windows disc and boot from it, it loads up like normal then i hit enter to continue and f8 to agree. Now, when it it gets to the part where it shows your HDD's and you do the formatting and stuff it just says "Unkown Disc"
then underneath it says (There is no disk in this drive.),
4 times over while there is only 1 HDD in the computer. If you hit D to delete the partition or enter to continue the screen goes black and then a BSoD saying a problem has been detected and windows has been shut down to prevent damage to your computer;

Technical info: ***STOP: 0x0000008E (0xc0000005, 0xF7640CAD, 0xF721E7E4, 0x00000000)

*** setupdd.sys - Address F7640CAD base at F7614000, datestamp 41107c8f

Now i'm not really sure what to do at all, and the only thing i can think of is that it doesn't detect the HDD's for some reason, maybe something Acer does to there computers so you have to send it to them to get it formatted or something so they can make more $ but i dunno, any help would be greatly appreciated,

Thanks.

When I get these strange Partition errors I use Delpart (from a bootable floppy or Cd)
http://www.juliatexas.com/delpart/delpart.htm
After fully removing the Partition with Delpart
Load Windows up and allow the Windows setup to automatically create an NTFS partition

Try that

i burnt that to a disc and went boot from disc and it just booted into windows, not too sure if i burnt it properly, i made it into an image then burnt the image file

Just basics here
Delpart is not bootable
You need to create a bootable disc then add Delpart to the image
Set bios up to boot from Cd first
Boot the CD into a dos prompt
run Delpart from the Cd's volume

To eliminate all this just use a bootable floppy
(although I suppose you don't have a floppy ! normal for new systems these days )

Ok, i managed to boot into Delpart and it just says no emulation or something 'start' not found

Here this may be easier
http://www.ultimatebootcd.com/download.html
You just need a proper bootcd

Ok, well i will download that and give it a try, what does it do exactly? and how will it help?

There are a number of Boot tools
But one being partition blowing away (not exact words!)
You can also use this CD and copy Delpart to it (if you know how to edit ISO's)

Yeah i know how to edit iso's, and i got Delpart to boot up but just had an error.

I'm going to call acer and see if they do anything to there computers or something

Well i rang Acer and they don't put any protection on there computers or anything but the guy on the line reckons it's a faulty HDD

Yes they do for around $180 an hour