 Need help reformating a hard drive. |
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 Jun 15 2005, 10:32 PM
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Member  Group: Members Posts: 32 Joined: 2-August 04 Member No.: 1,834  |
So I brought the hard drive over to my house and hooked it up as the slave HD. I can get my PC up and running but when I try to do anything with the screwed up HD everything locks up. How can I reformat this hard drive so my friend can start over? If I try to access the D:(the problem HD) the PC locks up and trying to reformat from the C: by typing format D:\ it just sits at 0%. Thanks. |
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Jun 16 2005, 02:38 AM
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 Forum Addict Group: Members Posts: 2,159 Joined: 18-March 05 From: near Sydney, Australia Member No.: 14,809 |
Comments rather than solutions:
1. If the hard drive is that bad your wasting your time. Drives are pretty cheap now so why not lash out for a new one? 2. Go to the HD manufacturers site they often have excellent diagnostics and formatting tools there. 3. Download a floppy image of a deletion tool like "Boot'n'Nuke", make sure the faulty drive is the only one in the system, boot off the floppy and in a couple of hours the hard drive is wiped. 4. Is the faulty drive recognised in your system BIOS? If not you wont be able to go any further. Re-check your jumper settings or put the faulty drive alone on the CDROM cable and see if it works there. hth 
-------------------- Soltek QBIC, Pentium 4 3.0GHz, 512MB RAM, 200GB SATA HDD, ATI Radeon 9600XT 256MB, Netgear 54Mb/s WAP, ridiculously expensive Satellite Broadband Windows XP Home SP2, Trend Micro Internet Security, Firefox, Thunderbird, AdAwareSE, Spybot S&D, SpywareBlaster, A-squared Free, Ewido Security Suite. |
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Jun 16 2005, 02:43 AM
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Distinguished Member Group: Members Posts: 641 Joined: 25-November 04 Member No.: 5,839 |
Depending on what the problem is with the hdd, I've recovered hdd's in the past by doing a zero format/wipe of the drive. This process has fixed whatever was wrong with the drive, if the drive is physically damaged or has faulty components then the only solution is to bin it and buy a new one.
If you have a high speed internet connection I'd suggest downloading UltimateBootCD which has all the diagnostic and wiping tools you'll need. This post has been edited by stidyup: Jun 16 2005, 02:44 AM -------------------- |
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Jun 16 2005, 08:14 PM
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Member Group: Members Posts: 32 Joined: 2-August 04 Member No.: 1,834 |
I appreciate the suggestions but I really don't know what any of that means.
I am hoping for some sort of erase button but the format option doesn't work. I also don't have a 3.5 drive. Thanks. This post has been edited by Steve Dave: Jun 16 2005, 08:15 PM |
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Jun 16 2005, 09:28 PM
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Forum Addict Group: Members Posts: 2,159 Joined: 18-March 05 From: near Sydney, Australia Member No.: 14,809 |
QUOTE I really don't know what any of that means. If you say which suggestion or comment you are interested in I'm sure the originator will not mind giving up their time to explain in more detail. The faulty drive is in your system but the system locks up when you try to access it. IMHO either the drive is so faulty you're wasting your time trying to reformat it OR you have not connected it correctly to your system. Until you have it correctly connected to your system you will not be able to do anything to it, and you run the risk of corrupting your own hard drive. -------------------- Soltek QBIC, Pentium 4 3.0GHz, 512MB RAM, 200GB SATA HDD, ATI Radeon 9600XT 256MB, Netgear 54Mb/s WAP, ridiculously expensive Satellite Broadband Windows XP Home SP2, Trend Micro Internet Security, Firefox, Thunderbird, AdAwareSE, Spybot S&D, SpywareBlaster, A-squared Free, Ewido Security Suite. |
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Jun 23 2005, 02:16 AM
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Member Group: Members Posts: 32 Joined: 2-August 04 Member No.: 1,834 |
QUOTE(Rimmer @ Jun 16 2005, 09:28 PM) If you say which suggestion or comment you are interested in I'm sure the originator will not mind giving up their time to explain in more detail. I am interested in whatever will get the drive working again. If that means formating it and reloading my stuff then that is what I will do if that means finding out that the hard drive is broke needs to be trashed that is what I will do. I would like the least complicated solution as possible since as I said above the things mentioned are foreign to me and my experience in this is very limited. |
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Jun 23 2005, 03:00 AM
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Distinguished Member Group: Members Posts: 641 Joined: 25-November 04 Member No.: 5,839 |
The ultimate boot cd is very easy to use as long as you read the onscreen menu's, all you need to do is look at the program menu options and select what you want to do.
Screenshots Have a look at the above screen shots. To wipe the drive: Press F2 Then I think it's the space bar to get to the next screen on hdd tools. Keep going until screen 5 comes up, then use Active Kill Disk F3, then I think it's 0, then wipe the drive with zeros. If this doesn't work the hdd is dead buy a new one. You will be able to confirm this buy doing the above but stopping on screen 2 of the hdd tools and running seatools desktop this will see if the drive is functioning correctly. Remember the download is a ISO file this means you need to select burn image if your cd opens with filename.iso showing as a file then you've done it wrong. If you want a small program to burn ISO images get SmallCDWriter here it's only about a 200kb download. SmallCDWriter Disc Record ISO image to disc. Or if you want a fully featured CD burning solution download CDBurnerXP Pro which can also burn ISO images. This post has been edited by stidyup: Jun 23 2005, 03:01 AM -------------------- |
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Jun 23 2005, 04:58 AM
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#8
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Forum Addict Group: Members Posts: 2,159 Joined: 18-March 05 From: near Sydney, Australia Member No.: 14,809 |
QUOTE I would like the least complicated solution as possible since as I said above the things mentioned are foreign to me and my experience in this is very limited. The hard drive is trashed, get a new one. -------------------- Soltek QBIC, Pentium 4 3.0GHz, 512MB RAM, 200GB SATA HDD, ATI Radeon 9600XT 256MB, Netgear 54Mb/s WAP, ridiculously expensive Satellite Broadband Windows XP Home SP2, Trend Micro Internet Security, Firefox, Thunderbird, AdAwareSE, Spybot S&D, SpywareBlaster, A-squared Free, Ewido Security Suite. |
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