C: drive is reported as 'bad'

[katy]

Hi All,

I use WinXP Pro installed on a 13gb drive that Partition Magic now reports
as 'bad'. I was going to use PM to convert my FAT32 to NTFS but it looks
like that won't happen. I am using 2 hard drives, the 2nd is an 80 gb WD
where I keep a lot of storage files and also where I have been installing
programs.

Now with this bad drive alert, I want to replace the C: drive with another
that I have that currently contains an older install of an OS plus programs,
it's an 80gb Maxtor ATA.

Is there a site that could help me through replacing this 'bad' 13gb drive
with a newer, larger, drive that contains files I need to erase first? I
am used to using a Win98 bootdisk to get to a prompt to format a drive, then
hoping to install the XP Professional on that drive and continue to use my
2nd drive as storage and program install drive. I'm sure the program
installs done todate will be messed up by creating a new boot drive.

I wonder if there is someone who could walk me through what I need to do or
point me to a site that would show me how to do this? I've just not had
enough problems with XP to be forced to learn how to fix a situation like
this. By replacing my current 13gb 'bad' drive with a newer larger drive, I
could format the new drive in NTFS right off the bat but I'm not sure how to
begin.

TIA for any help!!! katy

 

[Guest]

Katy,

I understand that you have two hard drives one as primary and the other as
secondary and the primary hard drive is been shown as bad when you use the
partition manager.

If you change the primary hard drive with the 80 GB ATA Maxtor hard drive,
then your secondary hard drive might not get recognized. You might have to
change some settings in the boot.ini drive.

 

[Pegasus \(MVP\)]

Hi All,

I use WinXP Pro installed on a 13gb drive that Partition Magic now reports
as 'bad'. I was going to use PM to convert my FAT32 to NTFS but it looks
like that won't happen. I am using 2 hard drives, the 2nd is an 80 gb WD
where I keep a lot of storage files and also where I have been installing
programs.

Now with this bad drive alert, I want to replace the C: drive with another
that I have that currently contains an older install of an OS plus programs,
it's an 80gb Maxtor ATA.

Is there a site that could help me through replacing this 'bad' 13gb drive
with a newer, larger, drive that contains files I need to erase first? I
am used to using a Win98 bootdisk to get to a prompt to format a drive, then
hoping to install the XP Professional on that drive and continue to use my
2nd drive as storage and program install drive. I'm sure the program
installs done todate will be messed up by creating a new boot drive.

I wonder if there is someone who could walk me through what I need to do or
point me to a site that would show me how to do this? I've just not had
enough problems with XP to be forced to learn how to fix a situation like
this. By replacing my current 13gb 'bad' drive with a newer larger drive, I
could format the new drive in NTFS right off the bat but I'm not sure how to
begin.

TIA for any help!!! katy

A few of questions for starters:
- Does the WinXP installation on the "bad" disk still work?
- If so, do you wish to keep it?
- Do you have access to another WinXP/2000 desktop PC?
- Do you have access to a CD burner?
- Do you still have your WinXP Professional CD?

 

[katy]

A few of questions for starters: (JUST TYPING LARGE not yelling)
- Does the WinXP installation on the "bad" disk still work? YES but its
very sluggish
- If so, do you wish to keep it? NO, I WOULD RATHER REINSTALL
- Do you have access to another WinXP/2000 desktop PC? NO
- Do you have access to a CD burner? YES cd and dvd
- Do you still have your WinXP Professional CD? YES plus the SP2 cd
I ordered from MS.

AS an afterthought, could I just remove entirely that 'bad'
drive and install XP on the large 80gb WD drive that I currently use for
storage and program installs, by adding another paritition (with PM) at the
beginning to install XP on that (I have 34gb free space on the 80gb drive
left)? that 80gb WD drive is partitioned in E and F. then I could install
my second 80gb Maxtor drive in second slot. but if I remove the boot
drive, would I just boot with the XP cd? the XP cd isn't a bootable cd,
that's how it came. It's OEM that I bought in 2001 online at Redbarn or
something like that. (Is there a way I could make it bootable) Thanks
katy

 

[Pegasus \(MVP\)]

AS an afterthought, could I just remove entirely that 'bad'
drive and install XP on the large 80gb WD drive that I currently use for
storage and program installs, by adding another paritition (with PM) at the
beginning to install XP on that (I have 34gb free space on the 80gb drive
left)? that 80gb WD drive is partitioned in E and F. then I could install
my second 80gb Maxtor drive in second slot. but if I remove the boot
drive, would I just boot with the XP cd? the XP cd isn't a bootable cd,
that's how it came. It's OEM that I bought in 2001 online at Redbarn or
something like that. (Is there a way I could make it bootable) Thanks
katy

You could do this:
- Create a FAT32 partition at the start of your 80 GB disk.
- Mark it as active.
- Boot the machine with a Win98 boot disk from www.bootdisk.com.
- Pop in your WinXP CD. Let's assume it's on drive D:.
- Type these commands:
d:
cd \i386
winnt
- Install WinXP in the FAT32 partition.
- When finished, convert it to NTFS.

 

[katy]

You could do this:
- Create a FAT32 partition at the start of your 80 GB disk.
- Mark it as active.
- Boot the machine with a Win98 boot disk from www.bootdisk.com.
- Pop in your WinXP CD. Let's assume it's on drive D:.
- Type these commands:
d:
cd \i386
winnt
- Install WinXP in the FAT32 partition.
- When finished, convert it to NTFS.

Thanks Pegasus! I made one attempt but backed out before completing
because of marking the new partition active. When I did that, P.M. 7.0
popped up with a question, are you sure you want to? I checked the other 2
partitions and the F partition is active. Can 2 partitions be 'active' on
the same hard drive? I wouldn't want to lose access to E or F by marking
the new G: as active. The Help section in P.M. didn't mention any caution
in doing this but the pop-up worried me. TIA for all your help... katy

 

[Pegasus \(MVP\)]

Thanks Pegasus! I made one attempt but backed out before completing
because of marking the new partition active. When I did that, P.M. 7.0
popped up with a question, are you sure you want to? I checked the other 2
partitions and the F partition is active. Can 2 partitions be 'active' on
the same hard drive? I wouldn't want to lose access to E or F by marking
the new G: as active. The Help section in P.M. didn't mention any caution
in doing this but the pop-up worried me. TIA for all your help... katy

Marking a partition as "active" sets a flag but does not affect
existing data in any way. Furthermore you can set only one
partition on a disk active. You're safe.

 

[katy]

I'm hoping to eliminate the first drive altogether and install WinXP at the
beginning of the 2nd drive now.
P.M. will create a partition at the beginning of the WD 80g. right now the
small drive that is reported as 'bad' is not set as active, but the F
partition of the WD is.

I'm hoping by installing XP at the beginning of the larger drive, this would
replace the boot.ini because currently that file is on the smaller 'bad'
drive that I will discard. AND I do hope that new partition will be
changed to C: and not the G: that it is when I set up the new partition.

I do think I better make dvd copies of all my important data on E and F.
Maybe everything will balance out but if it doesn't at least I won't wipe
out everything.

Thanks Jason!

 

[katy]

Thanks Pegasus, one last question: Is this the order I would perform
this.....

Add partition to beginning of 2nd drive, set as active, reboot to complete.
Shutdown, remove 'bad' drive, set 2nd drive as Master,
put Win98 bootdisk in floppy drive, reboot to A: prompt.
Put XP cd in cdrom drive, find prompt for cdrom drive assuming it's d, type
in:
d: [enter]
cd \i386 [enter]
winnt [enter]
- Install WinXP in the FAT32 partition.
- When finished, convert it to NTFS. (or can I convert all partitions to
NTFS at that time?) I would do this with Part. Magic.
Please don't hesitate to fill in what I missed, I can't afford to miss
anything .
TIA, katy

 

[Pegasus \(MVP\)]

See below.

Thanks Pegasus, one last question: Is this the order I would perform
this.....

Add partition to beginning of 2nd drive, set as active, reboot to

complete.
*** Yes.

Shutdown, remove 'bad' drive, set 2nd drive as Master, *** Yes.
put Win98 bootdisk in floppy drive, reboot to A: prompt. *** Yes.
Put XP cd in cdrom drive, find prompt for cdrom drive assuming it's d, type in:
d: [enter]
cd \i386 [enter]
winnt [enter] *** Yes.
- Install WinXP in the FAT32 partition. *** Yes.
- When finished, convert it to NTFS. (or can I convert all partitions to
NTFS at that time?) I would do this with Part. Magic.

*** When given the choice then I prefer to use native tools, in this case
*** convert.exe.

Please don't hesitate to fill in what I missed, I can't afford to miss
anything .

*** It will work. Good luck!

 

[katy]

Thanks Pegasus, I might need that luck! katy

See below.

Thanks Pegasus, one last question: Is this the order I would perform
this.....

Add partition to beginning of 2nd drive, set as active, reboot to

complete.
*** Yes.

Shutdown, remove 'bad' drive, set 2nd drive as Master, *** Yes.
put Win98 bootdisk in floppy drive, reboot to A: prompt. *** Yes.
Put XP cd in cdrom drive, find prompt for cdrom drive assuming it's d, type in:
d: [enter]
cd \i386 [enter]
winnt [enter] *** Yes.
- Install WinXP in the FAT32 partition. *** Yes.
- When finished, convert it to NTFS. (or can I convert all partitions
to
NTFS at that time?) I would do this with Part. Magic.

*** When given the choice then I prefer to use native tools, in this case
*** convert.exe.

Please don't hesitate to fill in what I missed, I can't afford to miss
anything .

*** It will work. Good luck!

TIA, katy