prime — Sun, 04 Sep 2005 09:42:10 +0000

Thanks Renegade/wwwben/demonhale

I will look into all that you have all advised and should be able to finally format it properly, thanks guys

demonhale — Sun, 04 Sep 2005 05:36:23 +0000

Yeah FDISK you must try... Incase youve tried all thats above heres a better way... for a much secure and better running XP in the future, also a healthy HDD...

Find another PC with either 98 or XP, make the HDD you intend to format as a slave then FORMAT it using the host PC... Once its done, Master the HDD to your own system... Check in DOS mode if contents are still there by using an 98 boot disk... If files are their reformat, it will be better after... Copy a 98 installation disc on your HDD using a Folder name Windows98 on your root directory... Remove the boot disk, then go to folder C:/Windows98 then run Setup... It will install 98... (better if 98se) then after installation use the 98 OS to update itself to Win XP and it will be much stable...

wwwben — Sat, 03 Sep 2005 23:36:01 +0000

FDISK first

Renegade — Sat, 03 Sep 2005 23:16:46 +0000

If you have a Windows 98 startup disk, or can find one, you can use that and then cd into the directory and "format :"

Otherwise, you might want to download a live CD such as Slax and use the formatting tools there.

I'm pretty sure though, that in with the Windows XP CD, there is an option for you to format your hard drive. Try going to edit the partitions and deleting them, then create the partitions again. That should force a format.

prime — Sat, 03 Sep 2005 19:41:33 +0000

Thanks for replying so quickly WarriorFX, yeah, ive been formatting it with the Windows XP install CD, i recently created an MS-DOS Startup Disk for use with XP, but have not used it yet, is this the disk i should use instead of trying to format from the XP Installation CD?

WarriorFX — Sat, 03 Sep 2005 19:32:27 +0000

Are you formatting it with the Windows XP install CD? You'll obviously need a boot disc to do this, since the system folder is on the drive you want to format... otherwise you could simply use the My Computer>>Manage>>Storage>>Disk Management

Whats your boot disc?