XP Can't Format Partition

[Sarah C]

Machine had working copy of XP Home however password was unrecoverable. Some
sort of corruption also prevented accessing Administrator account. Used XP
Pro disc to do a repair and was able to get on ... reset password and access
data.

After doing this, decided to do a fresh XP install. Booted off CD, deleted
partition, created new partition, formatted disc. At end of Format comes
back and says could not format partition. Possible bad drive. Check cables
etc.

Makes no sense as all else prior worked just fine. Tried formatting again
.... same issue. Hard shut down and then a few hours later tried again only
this time left about 1100mb as opposed to standard 8mb that XP leaves when
creating partition. Tried format and same issue ... gets all the way to the
end and then pops up message.

HELP !!! THANKS !!

 

[Andrew E.]

Try reboot to xp cd,press r for recovery,select 1 For C: Press enter key for
password,if prompted,other wise,once at recovery,ignore the text thats giving
you a hard time w/o an OS,& typeiskPart In DiskPart,see what partitions
exist,select all one at a time & delete,then create one,press ESC key.Either
type:EXIT & reboot to xp cd,reinstall,or type:CHKDSK C: /R Also,if the hd
is in question,download the hd checker from the hd mfg web site,get the
MS-DOS
version,install to MS-DOS formatted floppy,boot pc to floppy,run the tests...

 

[Sarah C]

Thanks so much for feedback. Tried everything except floppy with utility
which I will get to .... CHKDSK returned an immediate error that it could
not work on the drive. I have searched all day for utility for IBM Deskstar
dated year 2001 and have been unable to locate. Dell web site does not offer
utility either.

Any suggestions where I might find one?

 

[DL]

Hitachi has taken over Deskstar support, check their site for the disk
checking utility

 

[Sarah C]

Thanks DL. The issue now though .... I picked up a WD 80GB ATA-IDE drive
today for another machine and decided to test in this machine first. Same
error message after 100% complete formatting.

So if not the hard drive, where should I be looking? I mean it obviously
sees the drive when it partitions it ... and with the proper disk space
recognized. Still leaves the little 8mb unused space like usual. Thus hard
drive cable should be fine.

Bios Flash? Any other ideas ???

 

[DL]

Winxp installation issues can be down to the cd drive or memory problems, or
in some cases pwr supply