Fdisk and format and install issue with windows ME

[bryonbryon]

Hello there,

I'm am really having an issue with a friends computer.

I am trying to wipe his drive and install windows ME.

I Fdisk'ed his c: drive and deleted the partition and then created a new one.

The disk size is about 6GB.

I'm using a boot disk.

After I have created the disk partition I restart the computer and then, at the c: prompt, type setup.exe. Now what should happen next is that the windows disk in the cd rom drive starts scan disk and scans the computer. However, the problem is that when I press enter for windows to start scanning the registery, it flashes the blue scan disk screen and then flashes to a green screen and then does nothing. I have to reboot.

I then tried to just format the drive manually and not use the windows program. However, at the A: prompt when typing format c: it says that all data will be erased and bla bla bla but when I get to the format screen it freezes at 0%. It seems like there is something wrong with the hard drive.

What can I do about this?

Also something that may be of note but I'm not sure is that it would seen there is a D: drive. I don't know if it is a partition of the C: or if it is seperate. I believe that it is part of the C:. I deleted the partition and redid it. I then tried to do the install again. Same problem. I then tried deleting the partition of D: and not remaking it and then deleting the partion of C: and remaking it. I did this because I thought that this would re-encompus the partitioned D: drive and make them one again. This didn't work and I still have the same problem. I then tried to format the D: drive but it said it was an invalid drive and could not be formatted.

Now my friends computer won't work until I solve this. I'm thinking it is a hardware issue but I can't be sure. The computer was saying there was only about 1.6GB available when there was actually a lot more. It also crashed frequently. That is why I wanted to wipe it and reinstall.

 

[wolluf]

Bit of a confused post - I'm not entirely sure what you've done or what problems instigated this reinstall. It does sound like there may be a fault with the hard drive. You could try finding utility on drive manufacturer's drive to check its status (and possibly to overwrite whole drive with binary zeroes to see if that makes it usable).

Have you got another machine to try the drive in (in case it is a hardware problem in current machine). You could load it as slave and see if you can fdisk/format (or even better if you have access to 2k/XP machine - run disk management on it - run diskmgmt.msc).

When you run fdisk, have you used option to check current partitions? what does it tell you?

 

[bryonbryon]

Hello,

Thanks for the reply, unfortunately I don't have another machine to work with here. I was doing this with him over the phone.

I did check to see if there were other partitions. He just saw one.

What utility do I use to make the drive zero's and ones?

I do have another drive I can bring to him and maybe that will work.

I'm just wondering if there is anything I can do over the phone to fix the issue. Has anyone ever run into this before because I sure haven't. I've never had this much trouble with a HD format.

 

[paparazi]

I usually recommend downloading the specific Hard drive utility for the actual brand of hard drive ie: Maxtor's is called Max Blast etc (free download from the manufactures website)
Once downloaded follow the instructions and you will end up with a bootable floppy and utility, boot from that floppy and just follow the step by step guide to low level and S.M.A.R.T test the hard drive, this hopefully will take the drive back to factory settings/parameters ready to partition and format before your clean install.

Low level format
Carry out drive fitness test
Partition
Format
Setup Windows
Martin

Replying helps further our knowledge, without comment leaves us wondering.

 

[edfair]

When he looks at partitions with fdisk, does he see th 6gb partition as active?

Ed Fair
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.