My E:/ Drive crashed; what now?

[Guest]

Hi
I had a C:/Drive, E:/ Logical drive/partion; the E:/ crashed (for what
reason I know not why; I did a nornal shutdown and when I rebotted it was
gone) I tried to reformat (long) and after reformatting to 100% it produced
an error message: could not complete reformat. I proceeded to do a quick
reformat and received the blue screen of death! My C:/ lost no data and works
fine. My question is: is there a way to check whats wrong with the E:/ so I
can reformat it and if I delete the E:/ do I have to reinstall XP and do a
reformat of the C:/? When I checked the disk management screen (just after
the crash) it showed the C:/ & E:/ as being healthy as it does now--whats
with this? XP home, 120 GB HD, 516 MB ROm the system has been up 1.5 years
and never had a problem. Any suggestions? Thanks for your help.

 

[Jerry]

Diagnostic software is available from the hard drive manufacturer's web
site.

 

[Colin Barnhorst]

Reformatting the drive cannot affect Windows. The drive may be bad. Is it
an external or internal drive?

 

[philo]

Hi
I had a C:/Drive, E:/ Logical drive/partion; the E:/ crashed (for what
reason I know not why; I did a nornal shutdown and when I rebotted it was
gone) I tried to reformat (long) and after reformatting to 100% it produced
an error message: could not complete reformat. I proceeded to do a quick
reformat and received the blue screen of death! My C:/ lost no data and works
fine. My question is: is there a way to check whats wrong with the E:/ so I
can reformat it and if I delete the E:/ do I have to reinstall XP and do a
reformat of the C:/? When I checked the disk management screen (just after
the crash) it showed the C:/ & E:/ as being healthy as it does now--whats
with this? XP home, 120 GB HD, 516 MB ROm the system has been up 1.5 years
and never had a problem. Any suggestions? Thanks for your help.

disk management showing the drive as healthy does not have
any real bearing on the drive's integrety.
the drive is probably bad...
but run the mfg's diagnostic at once...
and be prepared to backup your data if the drive does not pass the test

 

[Guest]

Hi Colin
Ricer46
Thanks for your reply. I have to be a little repetitive so that I'm sure I
understand, so bear with me. 1) if I delete the E:/ partition can I then
proceed to create a new E:/ with out having to reformat C:/ and do I start
the process of size again? 2) when one formats a partition there a choices:
quick format or long format and cluster size; do you have any suggestions? 3)
since last we spoke: CHKDSK for C:/: "Volume Clean"; WD diagnostic (for (1)
physical disk)test/repair: damaged sectors but repairable, passed test 4) can
one CHKDSK a none formatted partition (I've tried, no luck)? 5) have you
heard in the PC community that using: Lavasoft-Ad-aware,
Spybot-search&destroy, Spy Doctor or SpyBlaster have harmed Hard Drives? I
appreciate all the help I can get, thanks again.
PS I would like to format the E:/ partition but a little gun shy

Just deleting E: would throw away all that disk space. To combine it into one partition
(not the best option) you'd have to re-install.

Reformatting the drive cannot affect Windows. The drive may be bad. Is it
an external or internal drive?

--
Colin Barnhorst [MVP Windows - Virtual Machine]
(Reply to the group only unless otherwise requested)

Hi
I had a C:/Drive, E:/ Logical drive/partion; the E:/ crashed (for what
reason I know not why; I did a nornal shutdown and when I rebotted it was
gone) I tried to reformat (long) and after reformatting to 100% it
produced
an error message: could not complete reformat. I proceeded to do a quick
reformat and received the blue screen of death! My C:/ lost no data and
works
fine. My question is: is there a way to check whats wrong with the E:/ so
I
can reformat it and if I delete the E:/ do I have to reinstall XP and do a
reformat of the C:/? When I checked the disk management screen (just after
the crash) it showed the C:/ & E:/ as being healthy as it does now--whats
with this? XP home, 120 GB HD, 516 MB ROm the system has been up 1.5 years
and never had a problem. Any suggestions? Thanks for your help.

 

[Colin Barnhorst]

I would not delete the partition unless I was creating space to merge with
another partition, and that can be dicey. I would do a full format on the
partition and let it go at that.

--
Colin Barnhorst [MVP Windows - Virtual Machine]
(Reply to the group only unless otherwise requested)

Hi Colin
Ricer46
Thanks for your reply. I have to be a little repetitive so that I'm sure I
understand, so bear with me. 1) if I delete the E:/ partition can I then
proceed to create a new E:/ with out having to reformat C:/ and do I start
the process of size again? 2) when one formats a partition there a
choices:
quick format or long format and cluster size; do you have any suggestions?
3)
since last we spoke: CHKDSK for C:/: "Volume Clean"; WD diagnostic (for
(1)
physical disk)test/repair: damaged sectors but repairable, passed test 4)
can
one CHKDSK a none formatted partition (I've tried, no luck)? 5) have you
heard in the PC community that using: Lavasoft-Ad-aware,
Spybot-search&destroy, Spy Doctor or SpyBlaster have harmed Hard Drives? I
appreciate all the help I can get, thanks again.
PS I would like to format the E:/ partition but a little gun shy

Just deleting E: would throw away all that disk space. To combine it into
one partition
(not the best option) you'd have to re-install.

Reformatting the drive cannot affect Windows. The drive may be bad. Is
it
an external or internal drive?

--
Colin Barnhorst [MVP Windows - Virtual Machine]
(Reply to the group only unless otherwise requested)

Hi
I had a C:/Drive, E:/ Logical drive/partion; the E:/ crashed (for what
reason I know not why; I did a nornal shutdown and when I rebotted it
was
gone) I tried to reformat (long) and after reformatting to 100% it
produced
an error message: could not complete reformat. I proceeded to do a
quick
reformat and received the blue screen of death! My C:/ lost no data and
works
fine. My question is: is there a way to check whats wrong with the E:/
so
I
can reformat it and if I delete the E:/ do I have to reinstall XP and
do a
reformat of the C:/? When I checked the disk management screen (just
after
the crash) it showed the C:/ & E:/ as being healthy as it does
now--whats
with this? XP home, 120 GB HD, 516 MB ROm the system has been up 1.5
years
and never had a problem. Any suggestions? Thanks for your help.

 

[Colin Barnhorst]

I have not heard that any antispyware programs can harm a hard drive. I
have heard that deletions by such programs can mistakenly remove a file
needed by another program. Simply deleting files would not harm a hard
drive and should not harm the file system.

--
Colin Barnhorst [MVP Windows - Virtual Machine]
(Reply to the group only unless otherwise requested)

Hi Colin
Ricer46
Thanks for your reply. I have to be a little repetitive so that I'm sure I
understand, so bear with me. 1) if I delete the E:/ partition can I then
proceed to create a new E:/ with out having to reformat C:/ and do I start
the process of size again? 2) when one formats a partition there a
choices:
quick format or long format and cluster size; do you have any suggestions?
3)
since last we spoke: CHKDSK for C:/: "Volume Clean"; WD diagnostic (for
(1)
physical disk)test/repair: damaged sectors but repairable, passed test 4)
can
one CHKDSK a none formatted partition (I've tried, no luck)? 5) have you
heard in the PC community that using: Lavasoft-Ad-aware,
Spybot-search&destroy, Spy Doctor or SpyBlaster have harmed Hard Drives? I
appreciate all the help I can get, thanks again.
PS I would like to format the E:/ partition but a little gun shy

Just deleting E: would throw away all that disk space. To combine it into
one partition
(not the best option) you'd have to re-install.

Reformatting the drive cannot affect Windows. The drive may be bad. Is
it
an external or internal drive?

--
Colin Barnhorst [MVP Windows - Virtual Machine]
(Reply to the group only unless otherwise requested)

Hi
I had a C:/Drive, E:/ Logical drive/partion; the E:/ crashed (for what
reason I know not why; I did a nornal shutdown and when I rebotted it
was
gone) I tried to reformat (long) and after reformatting to 100% it
produced
an error message: could not complete reformat. I proceeded to do a
quick
reformat and received the blue screen of death! My C:/ lost no data and
works
fine. My question is: is there a way to check whats wrong with the E:/
so
I
can reformat it and if I delete the E:/ do I have to reinstall XP and
do a
reformat of the C:/? When I checked the disk management screen (just
after
the crash) it showed the C:/ & E:/ as being healthy as it does
now--whats
with this? XP home, 120 GB HD, 516 MB ROm the system has been up 1.5
years
and never had a problem. Any suggestions? Thanks for your help.