Can't Format my HD!!

[Coombs]

Hi all,

I think my hard drive has failed....

I bought a new CD RW drive and 256m of RAM, installed both and my computer started to make a funny loud whining sound, although I think this sound was evident prior to installing my new hardware, but my computer still worked.

After I installed my new hardware, my computer failed to start properly, but started in safe mode and I could'nt find any problems.

So I ran scandisk, it found a bad sector (the first one), and stalled. Scandisk still shows the first sector as being bad, and still crashes when I run it.

So I tried formatting my HD, and after about 20% I get the message "trying to restore allocation unit", and stalls.

Is my HD dead?

Thanks in advance.

Lee.

 

[Eguy]

Lee;
If scandisk is showing the first sector as bad you may have a problem.
The very first sector on a disk is the boot sector. Every floppy and hard disk has a boot sector containing executable code. This sector contains an executable program whether the disk is bootable or not. Damage to this sector can make your disk appear to be unreadable. Try formating with the /S parameter or do a SYS command. Also try running fdisk with the /MBR parameter. Any of these will re-write the boot sector.

Ed Please let me know if the suggestion(s) I provide are helpful to you.
Sometimes you're the windshield... Sometimes you're the bug.

 

[edfair]

Would suggest taking out the new stuff just to be sure that you aren't fighting some wierd hardware problem.
With a bad sector at the front like you have, the only choice is to try a low level format, re-fdisk, and re highlevel format. And if it is an actual bad sector at the front the hard drive is bad. If low level recovers it for you the probablility is higher that it will come back again so do your backups.
Sometimes you have to wait a while for the format to decide that it can't recover a cluster. Ed Fair
unixstuff@juno.com
Any advice I give is my best judgement based on my interpretation of the facts you supply. Help increase my knowledge by providing some feedback, good or bad, on any advice I have given.

 

[prajapat]

If you heard clicking sound fro HDD, It is sign of HDD getting damaged. You may try the Disk Manager of the manufacturer to low level format and by zero filling the drive. If Zero fill fails, drive is gone. If it passes, fdisk the drive and format it (if like SYS format) and then run Scandisk. It should run, may be adding some bad sector. Now if the drive doesn't make clicking noise use it other replace it.

If drive is working, Keep SMART in setup on and if it reports errors and run Scandisk, notice if Bad Sectors are increasing. I so change the drive immediately. Some time the SMART triggers falsely but it gives pain of running Scandisk automatically to media check only.

Any upcoming bad sector will make windows or some programs to halt seemingly or give error which can be noticed easily by extended time of operation (unusally high).

 

[Coombs]

I have tried some of your suggestions, but still it stops formating @ around 20% and says "trying to recover allocation unit". How do I perform a low level format?
What do you mean by SYS commands?

Thanks for your comments thus far.

Lee.

 

[wolluf]

Drive manufacturers often have a low level format utility available on their website. The SYS C: command (in dos, normally after booting with win9x/ME boot floppy) writes basic system files to C: drive make disk bootable (format c: /s does the same after formatting). But as Edfair says - you'll need a successful lowlevel format first before you can try replacing MBR - which is on sector 0 (fdisk /mbr) repartitioning (fdisk) and formatting (high level).

 

[Coombs]

ITS FIXED!

Thanks to all of you for your help!

I got the diagnostic tools from Western Digitals Website, ran a low level format on my HD, then fdisk, then a normal format, Installed Windows and I was back up and running!
Simple as that, It did all take about 5hrs tho, but that did'nt bother me!

I appreciate all of your advice!

Thanks,

Lee.

 

[Guest_imported]

Dear All,

I encountered the same problem as Lee. I tried following the same steps as Lee did but the problem could not be solved. I want to clarify whether it is necessary to reset the PC every time the low level format, fdisk/mbr, ... processes are done.

Also my PC is a notebook computer. Is there any different from that in desktop PC?

Thank you

Michael

 

[edfair]

must reboot after any changes with fdisk, except the /mbr, but it is probably best in that case also.
May , or may not, have to reboot after formatting. But since you ask the question you probably should.
Notebooks have drivers that desktops generally don't. And sometimes you need some special drivers to get notebooks to work. Ed Fair
unixstuff@juno.com
Any advice I give is my best judgement based on my interpretation of the facts you supply. Help increase my knowledge by providing some feedback, good or bad, on any advice I have given.

 

[Guest_imported]

I have a seagate baracuda 20gb hard disk. it was being used on my sparc ultra 10 machine. now i want to use it on my intel machine for windows 2000 server. however i am not able to format it with win 2000. i am able to format it with win 98. i tried removing the master boot record fdisk /mbr. but still the problem remains

 

[jmatt]

Use delpart either in Windows or DOS , then fdisk , reboot & format .

Delpart.exe From NT 3.51, this utility can delete extended NTFS, Lilo, and just about any other type of partition .
DELPART is a DOS based utility that will remove NTFS partitions from hard drives. FDISK is unable to remove some types of NTFS partitions.
DELPART can wipe clean a hard drive, then you can use FDISK to create partitions normally.

http://www.bootdisk.com

http://www.michalferber.com/downloads.asp

http://www.2e.org/files.htm