Copying a partition made my HD unusable...? Would like to salvage the drive

[Jeff McAhren]

I used a dos based utility to try to copy my c:\ partition to another
same-sized partition, and now my HD seems to be unusable. My machine
wouldn't boot, I can't fdisk (it locks up or errors out with a very
general error message), I can't install Win XP Pro (the setup program
errors out when trying to do ANYTHING (create/delete partitions,
install, etc)).

What have I done to this drive? How can I
repair/reformat/repartition/reset this drive so that I can use it
again?

I downloaded some WD diagnostic tools, and they report that the drive
is healty on all tests, including a low level surface scan. There is
a format/prepare utility in that package which also errors out.

Please help! How do I "reset" this disk? (WD 120GB 8MB/7200)

Thx, JM

 

[Joep]

wipe the mbr, for example with MBRtool (free) from our website.

MBRtool /WT0 /DSK:0 will do; will wipe track 0 on the first physical disk.

- to wipe track zero on the second disk use

MBRtool /WT0 /DSK:1

Kind regards,
Joep

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DiskPatch - MBR, Partition, boot sector repair and recovery.
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