Windows XP Pro will not format drive to NTFS but will to FAT32, 40

[Jerry]

-----Original Message-----
Hello, I'm having a problem installing Windows XP Pro. I

have a 40 Gig HDD that has been reformatted, but will not
format to NTFS. I have run setup several times, and had
the following results: at the WinXp start up screen
offered the options of formatting the drive NTFS or NTFS
(quick) choose the first option, format "seems" to run
the comes back with a blue screen with the following
message: "setup was unable to format the partition. the
disk may be damaged. make sure the drive is switched on
and properly conected to your computer. if the disk is a
scsi disk, make sure your scsi devices are properly
terminated. consult your computer manual or scsi adapter
documentation for more information. you must select a
different partition for windows xp. to continue press
enter."

From this point I have done the following, I reboot and

run the Windows XP setup, at the pick partition section I
partitioned the disk in half (20 Gig & the remainder) and
the when asked to format a partition I choose the 20 Gig
partition, I am then given the options to fomat the drive
NTFS, NTFS (quick), FAT32, or FAT32 (quick), at this
point I have tried to pick both NTFS options, both yield
the same result as above. However if I go back and pick
FAT32 Windows XP installs and loads all my drivers I'm
asuming OK. This is the only way I can get things running
right now.

I have also run the Western Digital disk utilities,

reformatted the drive, written zeros to the drive, then
run all diagnostics supplied on the floppy included with
the drive, it reports no errors, and no bad sectors, that
the drive is fine.

I called MS tech support, and they determined my problem

to be hardware related. When I purchased the Dell it came
with a Western Digital 40 Gig ATA66 drive, the above
mentioned ATA 100, is a drve I added on later. I have run
this scenario on BOTH drives with the same results, I
find it HIGHLY UNLIKELY that both disks have problems or
errors. I currently have the machine in a stripped down
configuration, Floppy, one HDD, & Cd-Rom.

Please help, I want to eventually have the machine

formatted for NTFS on both drives one HDD running the O/S
and my applications and one HDD for data. Further more I
purchased XP Pro because I am a Web Developer and need
IIS to test run my work. My final configuration, (as I
had it setup and running on ME, and want to get it to on
XP) will be a Floppy, Two HDD's on IDE 1 as primary and
secondary, A CD-Rom & CD-Burner on IDE 2, and an internal
Zip drive on an ATA controler card.

.
If you search the Web there is a Utility called

Delpart.exe, (this is an old Msdos utiltiy cira 1994)you
make a dos boot disk and run in Pure dos.It will show you
all that is on the drive. you can delete NTFS and Fat
partitions from this utility. Not sure if it will
reconize Scsi. Writing 1 & 0 should of done the trick,
anyway if you see something on the drive with Delpart.exe
you will know it did not do the trick.

 

[Guest]

I wish you luck.
Jerry

-----Original Message-----
Thanks for the tip, I'll look into it. I'm going to try

installing the drive, and formatting it NTFS on a frineds
machine, then move it back to my machine and see if Win
XP will load then... wish me luck.

 

[Chris]

Thanks for the tip, I'll look into it. I'm going to try installing the drive, and formatting it NTFS on a frineds machine, then move it back to my machine and see if Win XP will load then... wish me luck.

:

A better idea would be to go on the internet and download the disk
utilities from your hard drive manufacturers (seagate, western digital
etc) website. These utilities usually contain:

* erasers (to wipe all data from the drive including any existing
partition tables/boot records)

* drive overlays (so older machines can access the drive properly)

* diagnostic tools

* third party disk partitioning tools

I wouldn't bother with the old DOS stuff because you'll probably just
risk corrupting the drive because that software was never designed for
such large disks.

Hope this helps,

Chris.

 

[Sid_32]

Did you ever get this solved? I have 4 Dell GX200 machines and what i
strange is XP installs on 2 of them without a problem. On the other 2
get the error you mention.

I have rev'd firmware, CD-Rom firmware, tried 3 hard drives, and
cannot get it to work. After a bit I discovered that on occasion i
will work???

I am guessing that this is related to perhaps the IDE controller o
some firmware. Dell GX200 uses Intel Ultra ATA controller on both, bu
the ones that work appear to be of a different build date than the one
that do not work. I am wondering if the controller has a bug?? Or som
other parts issues.

I read elsewhere that the problem shows up when XP tries to re-acces
the Hard Drive after format and partitioning. Perhaps the issue is tha
once partitioned the Bios changes things and XP gets confused. Or th
controller gets mixed up.

In short this is not a Hard Disk problem. Fat 32 will format out fin
usually and when it works so will NTFS.

The disks in a Dell are typically set up as Cable Select as well? Mayb
that has an impact????

In any case, Dell has been no support. Microsoft has nothing in thei
support about this. Yet search the Dell forums and Google and it i
quite common.

Unfortunately no fixes have worked. I can do few power down tries an
poof it will work all the sudden. The next time, nothing. I did se
something that the Dell's provided with Samsung SC-148C seem to sho
the most problems. In fact all GX200 with SC-148C drives exhibit thi
problem. The ones I have with Lite-On CD's work fine. I figured to tr
swapping to see what happens, but it does not seem to fix the problem.

I think it is Intel Chipset or Dell Firmware myself


-
Sid_3