Cant Format C:!

[killerlot12]

Hi... sry i haven't taken the trouble to introduce myself... but truth be told i'm in a bit of a hurry and honestly a bit panicky... iv'e been trying to reinstall windows xp for a while. i have 5 partitions, i've got win 98 on d: and xp on c:
however i cant seem to get xp to install... everytime i tried i would get soem error or the other after i'm done installing. now however i cant even format c:

If i use msdos to format it checks for bad sectors and then just as its starting to format it says bad disk or disk unusable or soemthign similar. the format utility in windows xp setup also says i cnat format it. so since i cant format it i cant install on it.. however the windows 98 os on D: seems to be working alright... i can even access the files on c: from 98. so what is wrong? is the disk physically screwed up?

thanx.

 

[Adwin]

It seems like your c: is an NTFS partition, so, you won't be able to access that from any windows below windows 2000, even DOS.
Try using cfdisk or gparted from a linux livecd or get Hiren's Boot CD and Format the partition using Partition Magic.

 

[alphnumeric]

You should be able to download a free utility to check the drive for errors from the drive makers web site. How are you booting to windows 98? The reason I ask is the boot loader would normally reside in the first partition on the drive, which is normally "C:\".