Format c: drive - little success!

[Guest_imported]

At the moment I am trying to format my 40 gb c: drive, with little effect!!

Everytime I try and format the c: drive it becomes stuck on "bad sectors" of the hard drive and displays the message "format terminated"

Is there anyway round this as I am only trying to delete Windows 95' and load Windows 98' on!

please help me!

 

[dinosnake]

If the FORMAT terminated then the bad sector errors occured very early in the format process, yes?

DOS needs 3 structures (in FAT16; in FAT32 it only needs 2 structures...) in EXACT locations. The Partition Table, the Root Directory, and the 2 FAT copies (main and backup). The Partition Table entry and the FAT are special - because they are so important their areas must have NO errors. If errors are found in those areas FORMAT fails - DOS cannot handle errors in those areas because it was not programmed to recompute alternate locations on the fly.

If this is indeed what is happening your only choice to save the drive is to repartition, creating a 'dummy' buffer partition as the first area on the drive to 'lock out' the bad area. In other words make, say, a 1MB partition, then a 2GB FAT16 partition then an extended partition holding the balance (47.9GB).

(Note that I make a 2GB FAT16 C: - this is my personal preference. FAT16 drives are much, much more recoverable from a crash than FAT32 drives, so I make a 2GB FAT16 that contains only the OS - never install programs there unless they are OS utilities and never store files there. Put all other programs and data on the FAT32 D:. Much less chance of corruption, and if it does corrupt I can hex-edit the FAT tables back into shape. )

Don't use the 1MB partition - it is just there to force DOS / Windows to use the area past the damage. If 1MB doesn't push it past the damage far enough make a bigger buffer partition - it can be, or end up, any size you want or need.

If you want to make a 1GB dummy, fine - it's your choice.

Your mileage may vary...

 

[Guest_imported]

I don't think that it is in the very first area. I think that it is around the three quarter stage - as when I tried the /s techinque to format the drive instead of "format c:" i managed to get to 72%, I am guessing this is the beginning of the bad sector!

Can I still use your method and try and partition the last quarter of the drive or is there a better way?

Thanks for trying to help me!

 

[Guest_imported]

try running FDISK, with a windows 98 boot disk, and partition the drive 50-50, set the active partition to C drive.

type "format c: /q"
on confirmation answer yes

it will cancel

then proceed with an unconditional format

install windows onto that portion of the drive

after windows is installed

then format d:

then everything should be okay