Format Aborted, Hard Disk Not Recognized....used FDISK from 98 Floppy

[Jack Danniel]

Hello.

I have Windows XP Pro.

Recently, I formatted my hard drive. While reinstalling Windows XP
Pro from the CD, during the formatting to NTFS process, I
inadvertently shut down the computer. I never did that before.

Anyway...when I tried rebooting, I got all sorts of hard disk failure
warnings (I don't recall what they said, exactly). I was absolutely
unable to get the hard drive recognized by the XP Pro CD, so
installing it was not possible.

I have two computers, so what I tried to do next was download the
Windows XP bootable startup floppy creator from the Microsoft web
site. They didn't work, either.

Thinking quickly, and desperately, I got out an old Windows 98 startup
floppy, and used FDISK. I then ran an unconditional format. The hard
drive was recognized, and I was able to install XP.

Had it not been for that floppy disk, I don't know what I would have
done.

So... my question is: Does Windows XP Pro have an FDISK option,
similar to the one on the bootable Windows 98 startup floppy? In the
event I ever run into this problem again (and I'll take pains to see
that it doesn't), can I use the XP CD to FDISK the hard drive? Of
course, I have several copies of the Windows 98 floppy, just in case,
but can anything be done purely off the installation CD?

Thank you! Jd



To reply privately,
please remove the number 5 from the return address.
Thank you! J. Danniel

 

[Jetro]

You can boot off CD into Recovery Console and use the *diskpart*, *fixboot*,
*fixmbr*, and *format* commands.

 

[Guest]

Just reboot to xp cd,select at info page,install xp,new copy,delete the
partition,
create one,then xp will reformat the drive.

 

[Jack Danniel]

Hi.

I don't know if that would work, because when I tried to boot up from
the CD, I couldn't. Otherwise, I would have done a DIR of the various
directories and searched for something that might have helped.

I should have mentioned that in the original post.

I don't think I was able to access the CD at all. So, maybe my
question was a moot one. Hopefully, this won't happen again. At
least I have several copies of the startup floppy for Windows 98, in
case it does.

You can boot off CD into Recovery Console and use the *diskpart*, *fixboot*,
*fixmbr*, and *format* commands.

To reply privately,
please remove the number 5 from the return address.
Thank you! J. Danniel