Format and installation problem

[mach04]

Hi all,
I have a problem with the hard drive in my laptop. The problem is after I recently formatted the hard drive and installed the Windows XP home, were using the pc for two days. During these two days it received some updates from microsfot, and I only installed AVG antivirus, MS office plus the addition drivers such as for audio and video.
PC after this time suddenly got stuck and it was not possible to do anything at all with it (at this moment I was in the windows enviroment). After restarting the pc it didnt started normally as it used to. It showed whether I want to use it in safe mode or in the normal mode. After several unsuccesful attempts trying entering the pc in normal mode, I chose the safe mode but that didnt help at all.
I tried to repair the windows by choosing to repair windows. During the process it asked for several files that it needed to copy some certain dll files from the windows/system32. I tried to open those files manually from the cd drive but it appparently couldnt read those files even though I could see them. It kept on continuing the installation.
Finally I thought to reformat the drive in order to clean anything that might have caused the problem. Ever since it has been impossible to go through a new installation.
After ending the formatting it gives a message that your drive may be damaged.

My question is what do you think the problem could be? and what should I do? Could it be a damaged drive or other thing.

 

[zenphx]

Hi. I found your post via Google because I had the same problem with a Toshiba laptop drive. One of my clients gave it to me to repair after some serious operating system damage. She also had some sensitive info on the drive, so I use Darik's Boot and Nuke to write zeros to the drive. Afterwards, the Windows XP install CD could not format the drive. Disk diagnostics showed no damage. I tried several other utilities, but no success.

Finally, I tried Symantec's Partition Magic. It formated the drive (I created two partitions) for NTFS in very little time. I was then able to proceed with the XP install without any further problems. (I believe Partition Magic 8.0 is freeware).

Hope you see this and get to resurrect your drive.