hard drive buggered

Tom Dunne

Did a de-frag on the hard-drive of my beloved HP Pavillion and it won't boot since.

I tried a whole heap of things. To cut a long story short, I resorted to installing Linux which worked, but Windows just won't re-install. It keeps hanging on the format of the disk.

What options have I (apart from buying a new hard drive)?

commited

Do you have a desktop?
Buy a 2.5 - 3.5 ide converter and plug your laptop hdd into your PC. Then format it using either windows or a program like partition magic pro Delete all the partitions on the hard disk and set yourself two NTFS partitions, use C: for windows, programs & games, for your documents. Try to make C: about 5gb bigger than you need.

Dont use windows defragmenter - use executive software diskeeper (think its free).

Hopefully this will sort the mess for you

ressem

If it's dying during formatting, I'd guess that there's some issues with the disk. Looking for a disk specific analyser from the manufacturer might be worthwhile.

But anyways.
You've installed Linux. So what's your partition layout now?

I would suggest getting a linux live CD.
Use Fdisk to create a large Fat32 partition at the start of the disk, preferably less than 32 GB (though linux version can format larger partitions).
Format using linux package dostools, mkfs.vfat -F 32 /dev/hda1 or whatever.

You might have access to dos/win based rescue disks that provide the equivalent, but since you had success formatting with linux thought I'd stick with it.

Install windows onto this partition without reformatting. Use convert to switch to ntfs.
Some file security settings might be missing after this.

Though, if an option, trying to format the hard drive as a seconndary drive in another laptop or desktop would be useful in ruling out problems.

(Isn't the windows defragger just the cut down version of Diskeeper?)

Tom Dunne

commited wrote:

Do you have a desktop?
Buy a 2.5 - 3.5 ide converter and plug your laptop hdd into your PC. Then format it using either windows or a program like partition magic pro Delete all the partitions on the hard disk and set yourself two NTFS partitions, use C: for windows...

I am not sure this will work, considering the disk won't even format under Windows. I will keep it in mind, though.

ressem wrote:

If it's dying during formatting, I'd guess that there's some issues with the disk. Looking for a disk specific analyser from the manufacturer might be worthwhile.

Yeah, I reckon there is something wrong with the disk alright.

ressem wrote:

You've installed Linux. So what's your partition layout now?

Nothing - I installed Linux to see if the disk was really buggered, I used the whole disk for it. Once I knew something could be installed on the disk, I deleted the Linux partitions and tried to re-install Windows.

ressem wrote:

I would suggest getting a linux live CD.
Use Fdisk to create a large Fat32 partition at the start of the disk, preferably less than 32 GB (though linux version can format larger partitions).
Format using linux package dostools, mkfs.vfat -F 32 /dev/hda1 or whatever.

This sounds like the best option for now, I'll give it a go today (once my hangover clears ).

Looking at Komplett, a 40Gig hard drive is only €70 for the laptop, that's not as bad as I thought.

commited

tom dunne wrote:

I am not sure this will work, considering the disk won't even format under Windows. I will keep it in mind, though.

In my experience in the past, doing this to a 3.5" drive has worked fine. Give it a go - it's cheaper then a Hard disc

Tom Dunne

Got it working. Does any one else think it is quite ironic that I had to install Linux to install Windows

Two Linux and two Windows installations later, my laptop is back from the dead. Madness.

Thanks for the suggestions.