Need help desperately! Problems formatting hard drive! 3

[robertbrunning]

Hello im hoping somebody can help me.

I am trying to format a laptop so that I can put a clean version of windows XP Pro on it. I first tried to format it through a boot up dos but it got to 71% and decided not go any further. I then went though the win XP boot up on the cd and deleted the old partition and created a new one. One again I tried to format this partition (NTFS) but again it stopped at the magic 71%. How frustrating!

So now I can’t load any operating system and I have a hard drive which doesn’t seem to want to be formatted!

Any suggestions as to why? Or how to fix it?

Please help me! It’s not even my computer eeekkk… it’s my best friend (or perhaps soon to be worst enemy!)

If you need to know any other details please contact me! On here or via e-mail

rob_in_oz2003@hotmail.com

Rob

 

[mainegeek]

roberbrunning,

What problems was it having before the clean install attempt?

The drive may have developed bad sectors causing it to stall at 71%.

What make and model is the laptop?

 

[Sival]

Rob, I would first see if mainegeek's idea is correct. Go to the manufacturer's website of your hard drive and download the diagnostic program that runs from a floppy. Run the program and at least see if the drive is good before you waste any more time on other things. It's always a good idea before reinstalling an OS to do this just so you know the drive is good before going further. Good luck.

 

[kiddpete]

How big is 71%? BTW, my Win XP Pro formats the target drive just prior to installing itself. Have you let it do that?

 

[robertbrunning]

Ok guys here is what i have done.

I found out it was a Hitachi hard drive. So i went to their site

http://www.hitachigst.com/hdd/support/download.htm#Drive fitness

And i downloaded the drive fitness test/the CD image to create a bootable cd.

What i got was in iso format... so i unzipped it and then wrote it to cd.

Unfortunatly this wont boot! i have been booting other CD's from here.. so im not sure why.

Must be how i am writing the CD i guess... any suggestions? Do you know what i have to do to write a boot disk? Or any programs i have to use with iso files

 

[Sival]

Rob, an iso image must be written to a cd in a different way than regular files. I don't know what program you used to copy, but you need to make sure to use the procedure in your cdrw program that writes an iso image to make the disc bootable. Your other option is to go to

http://www.hitachigst.com/hdd/support/download.htm

and download the Windows diskette creator to make a bootable floppy with diagnostics on it.

 

[kiddpete]

The 71% size is significant. If it is a magic number around 130gigs, you may be dealing with a software limitation. Drives larger than that need Win XP SP 1, and may need an updated driver. It doesn't sound like you are getting far enough into the process to resolve that issue. When you say you are trying to format with dos, the bells keep ringing about a software limitation.

 

[garebo]

I think kiddpete is on the right track here, that is, if your hard drive is supposed to be around 200 gig. 70% of that less drive overhead could equal the 130 gig mark or 71% you are referring to.


Good advice + great people = tek-tips

 

[wolluf]

robertbrunning - what's wrong with using the drive fitness bootable floppy? (the download will just create one for you).

btw - someone esle asked, and no answer yet - what problems were you having with the machine in the first place to prompt the format/reinstall?

PS. Why did you not boot from XP install CD, and use its partitioning tools to delete/create/format partition?