Partitions and damaged drives

[R4L]

OK, so my friend got a really nasty virus on his laptop, and decided he wanted to erase everything off his HD. So we tried to do a partition of his C drive, using a copy of my Windows XP Pro.

The disc boots from start, and we deleted the C partition, and made a new one, C Partition (RAW) from the Windows Install CD. Now, before installing Windows, we had to format the partition to NTFS, but that's the problem. The program always freezes at a certain percentage, and never finishes. The other option, is to format for NTSC (quick), so we decided to try that second, and it finishes, but gives us a message saying "Setup cannot be completed. The disc may be damaged. Try installing on a different partition."

We can only make one partition, and it isn't working no matter what we do. What is the problem?

Before we did this, we didn't uninstall XP because his virus barely lets him do anything, so I was thinking maybe that would be the problem, but I don't think that matters...

Please help. It would be much appreciated!

[Ryan Timothy B]

I've never encountered this problem before, so it sounds more like a damaged hard drive to me.

[R4L]

Well we just ran GParted and it seems the problem is making the drive NTFS, so we're gonna try formatting it to FAT32 first, and maybe Windows will have an easier time formatting it to NTFS.

I'll be back with an answer.

[Mantra of Doom]

Does it always stop at the same percentage? If it stops at roughly the same place then there's something wrong with that part of the drive. You never have to uninstall windows... formatting the disk to a raw partition and having the windows setup rewrite should always work on a disk that isn't damaged.

I don't think that trying a different file structure is going to work, though if you feel adventurous enough and have the right sort of cable connector, you might want to pop the hard drive out of the laptop and try formatting it from a different computer. A 2.5 hard drive enclosure or any sort of 3.5 to 2.5 or 2.5 to usb adapter would let you hook the drive to a different machine to troubleshoot.

I wish you luck, hard drives can be tricky.

[zabnat]

Does the BIOS have option to low level formatting the drive? If so, then try it. While in BIOS, check the manufacturer of the disc and download a hdd diagnostic tool (they are usually stand alone boot images) that works on that drive and see if the drive is indeed damaged. Then try installing Windows again.

[R4L]

Does the BIOS have option to low level formatting the drive? If so, then try it. While in BIOS, check the manufacturer of the disc and download a hdd diagnostic tool (they are usually stand alone boot images) that works on that drive and see if the drive is indeed damaged. Then try installing Windows again.

No, the BIOS has no options for any sort of formatting. I'll have to check for something on Compaq's website.

Does it always stop at the same percentage? If it stops at roughly the same place then there's something wrong with that part of the drive. You never have to uninstall windows... formatting the disk to a raw partition and having the windows setup rewrite should always work on a disk that isn't damaged.

I don't think that trying a different file structure is going to work, though if you feel adventurous enough and have the right sort of cable connector, you might want to pop the hard drive out of the laptop and try formatting it from a different computer. A 2.5 hard drive enclosure or any sort of 3.5 to 2.5 or 2.5 to usb adapter would let you hook the drive to a different machine to troubleshoot.

I wish you luck, hard drives can be tricky.

Well, it used to stop at 38%, but recently it gets to 3% and stops, and now it doesn't even go past 0%. We were following a guide on the internet about formatting the C drive and reinstalling Windows on it.

I also don't have those cables to try that with. Dang.

[LUniqueDan]

First thing of all, check *again* your XP CD. Even if it's not directly related to the  formatting jam.

Use FLush_HD, 3 or 4 times in a row to be very sure that the MBR is well emptied.

Try reinstalling it.

(EDIT : At that point, I'll maybe try Format32, nice bootable stuff)


Last ressort: try installing Ubuntu, then re-install XP over it.
(Sounds weird, but it did some miracles for me)

If it's still not working, I'm sorry... your HD is dead.

Good Luck

[R4L]

First thing of all, check *again* your XP CD. Even if it's not directly related to the  formatting jam.

Use FLush_HD, 3 or 4 times in a row to be very sure that the MBR is well emptied.

Try reinstalling it.

(EDIT : At that point, I'll maybe try Format32, nice bootable stuff)


Last ressort: try installing Ubuntu, then re-install XP over it.
(Sounds weird, but it did some miracles for me)

If it's still not working, I'm sorry... your HD is dead.

Good Luck

Sounds like a plan! It's late now, but I'll work on it tomorrow! Thanks.

[Akatosh]

First thing of all, check *again* your XP CD.

This. I had pretty much the same problem some 10 months ago, and it turned out the CD had gotten fucked up. Try using a different CD (come on, we ALL have an additional "backup copy" >.>) - sometimes it works wonders.

[deltoran]

dont partition it, windows will delete the virus and every thing when it installs.  :

[R4L]

dont partition it, windows will delete the virus and every thing when it installs.  :

And pigs will fly... and yadda yadda yadda.

First thing of all, check *again* your XP CD.

This. I had pretty much the same problem some 10 months ago, and it turned out the CD had gotten fucked up. Try using a different CD (come on, we ALL have an additional "backup copy" >.>) - sometimes it works wonders.

We were using a fresh "backup copy" but to no avail.

I just took it to a computer specialist in my school, and he said that the drive won't format and without having a floppy drive on my friend's laptop, he can't really use too many utilities. The drive is most likely busted...

Well, it's settled for now. Thanks for all the help guys.

[LUniqueDan]

 :'(

[Obi]

If it were me I would have run SpinRite version 6 on that sucker and boom it could probably fix the drive enough to at least get files off of it. It would have also told me what was up with the hard disk and possibly been able to fix it! It is a commercial product http://www.grc.com/spinrite.htm but... you know.  :

[R4L]

Well, he doesn't want to keep anything on it; he only uses it to get on Xbox Live, which is why I keep telling him to buy a router...