cant format my hard drive

[kepa13]

i have 2 140 GB hard drives that i cant format. i took them out of a mitsubishi tv i guess i had DVR in it or idk. i connect the hard drive and it shows up on BIOS but i cant make a partition for it. ive formated other hard drives before but i dont know whats wrong with this one. i cant make a NTFS for it like with other hard drives.
any one know wat i cant do?
ive posted this in many dferent forums but i cant find any help. hopefuly i find some real experts here that can help me.

if you know wat i can do PLEASE help me.

Thank you in advance.

 

[tlcscousin]

If the computer is XP or Vista go to disk management in admin tools and right click the drive and create a partition and then you should be able to format it.
The drives when they come from a dvt dvr are in an unknown format and windows has no idea what to do with it. You need to create a partition on the drive (unless they are dead drives) and then format becomes an option.

 

[kepa13]

tlcscousin thank you for replying to my post.
i tried wat u said but on the disk management only appears my old disk i already had and i try refreshing the list but still nothing. the disk does show up n BIOS and as soon as i turn on the PC it detects it and installs it, but like i said it doesn't show up on disk management .

any other ideas?

 

[BadBigBen]

Nuke it first...

Darik's Boot and Nuke (DBAN) is the right utility for this...

There are certain codes or boot blocks that prevent the repartitioning/formatting under Windows, these get overwritten by DBAN (you can abort at about 5% into the process, or wait for it to do the whole drive) with random data or zeros depending on which wipe method you choose (simple one swipe should do)...



Ben
"If it works don't fix it! If it doesn't use a sledgehammer..."
How to ask a question, when posting them to a professional forum.
Only ask questions with yes/no answers if you want "yes" or "no"

 

[kepa13]

Thank you for replying BadBigBen,
but how do i install it? i download the .rar file from dban website and when i unzip it i dont see anything .exe to install nor .iso to burn to a cd.

any tips? :/

 

[BadBigBen]

you should have gotten the .ZIP file from this location:

http://sourceforge.net/projects/dba...042900/dban-beta.2007042900_i386.zip/download

unzip it, and there is a bootable ISO which you burn to CD...

remove all but the drive you are going to NUKE, this is to prevent any unforeseen hick-ups, e.g. wrong drive getting wiped...





Ben
"If it works don't fix it! If it doesn't use a sledgehammer..."
How to ask a question, when posting them to a professional forum.
Only ask questions with yes/no answers if you want "yes" or "no"

 

[kjv1611]

Also, for burning an ISO image, you'll need a burning app that supports such. Nero and Roxio will of course, but if you're not sure about it, the absolute easiest app, in my opinion, is ImgBurn, and it's 100% free:

http://download.cnet.com/ImgBurn/3000-2646_4-11089207.html

As BadBigBen said, download the zip file, extract the ISO image, and then use ImgBurn (or whatever you prefer) to burn the image to a disk...

Shut down your computer - if going to use the same machine to do the format.

Disconnect ANY mass storage drive - hard drive, SSD, USB flash drive, etc; other than the one you want to format.

Turn back on the computer.

If you didn't put the DBAN disk in the DVD/CD drive, then do that now.

You shouldn't have to worry about getting the machine to boot from CD/DVD at this point, b/c you'll not have an OS to boot from the hard drive.

Let DBAN run for a little while like BBB said. Once you've gotten that far, you can cancel the format if you like, shut down the machine, reconnect your system drive and other drives if applicable, turn the computer back on - be sure to remove dban disk if not done already

Get into Windows, and see if you're now able to work with the drive(s) you were previously unable to do.

If for some reason you are not able to get to the drives with DBAN, then try looking into the Ultimate Boot CD, and see if any of it's apps will get to the drive(s).

--

"If to err is human, then I must be some kind of human!" -Me

 

[kepa13]

like i said before, i download the file, unzip it but i dont see anything ISO to burn :/ heres wat i get when i unzip the file...

http://i106.photobucket.com/albums/m267/kepa13/untitled-8.jpg

wat is it that i need from there?, cus i fidn everything useless. i tried the BIN file that says 'isolinux' but its nothing. =/

 

[Lemon13]

the iso file is the dban-beta.2006042900_i386, just rename it from .rar to .iso and burn it.

M. Knorr

MCSE, MCTS, MCSA, CCNA

 

[BadBigBen]

or just right click the mentioned file (see above) and have it open with the burning app that you have installed...

you should also make file extensions visible, that way you would have noticed that WinRAR is linked to ISO files...

How to Make File Types Visible in Windows Explorer

http://www.ehow.com/how_4911579_make-types-visible-windows-explorer.html

Ben
"If it works don't fix it! If it doesn't use a sledgehammer..."
How to ask a question, when posting them to a professional forum.
Only ask questions with yes/no answers if you want "yes" or "no"

 

[kepa13]

I did what you guys said. changed to file from .rar to .iso but it still opens wit winrar. so then i uninstalled winrar and right clicked the file, Open With and choose NeroSmart and when i try to open it an error says it is not a valid win32 app. so then i open up Nero and choose to make a bootable cd. Then i add the iso file that opened with winrar and click Burn. the % goes up to 100 but when its about to finish it gives me an error.

I had never struggled so much with stuff like this =/ and i really appreciate you guys trying to help me.
So, one last tip?

If i cant do Im gonna just have to throw away the HDD xD

 

[Lemon13]

start nerosmart, go to "save" (sichern in german, you will find it) and choose image to disk, choose the dban-beta.2006042900_i386.iso, burn it

M. Knorr

MCSE, MCTS, MCSA, CCNA

 

[BadBigBen]

Open With and choose NeroSmart

Wrong choice...

choose instead: Nero.exe



Ben
"If it works don't fix it! If it doesn't use a sledgehammer..."
How to ask a question, when posting them to a professional forum.
Only ask questions with yes/no answers if you want "yes" or "no"

 

[kepa13]

finally!D
ok its burned now im gonna try it out .

 

[kepa13]

,
nothing. all i see is a low dash blinking and nothing happens. Maybe it was not burned right?

 

[Freestone]

How about a different program alotogether? Killdisk should provide the same function as DBAN. There is a free diskette version and a free CD ISO version.

http://www.killdisk.com/downloadfree.htm

 

[kjv1611]

If you go back and download ImgBurn like I mentinoed earlier, use it to burn the DBAN ISO image to CD. It actually runs much simpler and easier than the Nero apps anyway. For burning image files (such as .iso), it's a GREAT application.

So...
[OL][LI]Download and install ImgBurn[/LI]
[LI]Find your ISO file, "dban-beta..._i386.iso"[/LI]
[LI]Right-click on that file[/LI]
[LI]Select "Burn with ImgBurn" from pop-up/context menu[/LI]
[LI]When ImgBurn opens, put a blank cd in your cd/dvd burner drive if there isn't one there already[/LI]
[LI]Once complete, take out the disk.[/LI]
[LI]Place the disk in the computer to be wiped[/LI]
[LI]Boot the system - if you don't get DBAN on the screen, you may need to go into your BIOS settings to verify that the PC is booting first from the optical/CD/DVD drive.[/LI]
[LI]Once DBAN shows on the screen, type autonuke, hit your <Enter> button, and walk away.[/LI]
[LI]Come back oh 15 to 30 minutes later, Put your Windows disk into the CD/DVD drive,[/LI]
[LI]Turn the power off to the computer, and back on...[/LI]
[LI]Install Windows.[/LI]
[/OL]



--

"If to err is human, then I must be some kind of human!" -Me

 

[wvdba]

i think your best bet is to get a windows 98 boot disk, start your machine with this boot disk, then use FDISK command to nuke and wipe any disk/partition on the drive.
you can get a win-98 boot disk from here:

http://www.bootdisk.com