Help !!!! i need to format hard drive

paul moore

Hi,
hope ye can help,im installing WIN XP,and when it goes to do the format thing it says there was an error in the formatting,can i do this formatting another way ??

Thanks......

skywalker_208

You can do it with a Dos boot disk by using the FDISK funtion.. if you have a Dos boot disk that is...

but can you tell us more about this error? do you get it during the installation? does it give any more info?

paul moore

no havent got dos boot disk...i just select:

format the partition using the ntfs file ststem <quick>
goes to 100% and then......doing it right now....setup was unable to format the partition,the disk may b damaged

skywalker_208

Dont suppose you have access to another machine? you could setup this drive as a slave and perform disk check and error fixing...

paul moore

yea on laptop now,i have other hard drivre, there but win 98 on them one is 10 gig the other 2 gig,any help ?

SwampThing

details on the disk you're formatting - what did it come out of, last OS, size, type etc. same for machine you're putting it into.

paul moore

in the machine from day 1,win 98 on it but was not starting up,a certain person was messin with files.....20 gig and the mke: maxtor

SwampThing

OK, so you're sure the drive is not fecked?

Like skywalker says, can you put one of the other disks in this machine as primary master and the 'dodge' one in as a slave?

paul moore

im not wel up yet!!,do i swap them around ???

SwampThing

Yep. Put a known good, bootable hdd in the machine on the primary IDE controller, and make sure the jumpers are set to master. Put the other 'dodge' drive in as either a slave on the primary controller (jumper set to slave) or a master on the secondary controller (jumper set to master)

If that doesn't make sense to you - we'll need a different approach.

Endurance Man

Usually when you get an error during formatting it is becuase the HDD is pup, perhaps send it back and get a new one.

pred racer

pup?

paul moore

the jumber thing has me,sorry,

SwampThing

Hang on there a few minutes....

pred racer

The jumper tells the hard drive whether it is the master or the slave,
your comp will try to boot from the master, so if you change the jumpers on the hard drive you will basically change their position in the pecking order.
The jumper pins are normally between the IDE(ribbon) cable and the power connecters. Printed on the hard drive somewhere there will be a graphical key as to which pins do what. Place the jumper between these pins(as in the graphic) and viola....

If you are not comfortable with this I would suggest getting someone esle to look at it for you..

paul moore

just doing it now....

SwampThing

How'd you get on?