Cant format hard drive with Windows 7, alternate method suggestions?

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Wildside

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Still working on my friends hard drive. Twice already i tried doing a full format on the hard drive with my OS. It didnt work. What other freewares or something do u guys suggest i use for formatting the hard drive while on desktop? I have to try using Recuva after i format it to recover all the files on the hard drive.
 
I wouldn't give up so easily if I were you, try these steps to see what will happen.
Get your hands any type of windows xp home or pro cd.
Put it in, and wait for setup to load up, once it does agree to microlosses terms and it will put you at the screen for any partitions that may show up.
If the C:drive shows up, delete the partiton with the windows xp disc, format the that partition windows xp.
Once it shows you how much free space you have, reboot the pc.
Load a stable clean dvd of windows 7 home,pro, or ultimate.
Once the windows 7 installation loads up you should see your partition ready to go, use that partition hit install and you should have no problems installing windows 7 after that.
If so, I recommend you download Hiren's Boot CD 10.1 and All Other Versions - HTTP Download
 
It could be problem with driver for HDD controller, if Win7 does have it then it could not recognize the drive properly and use it for installtion. Try to get driver separatelly and provide it to Win7 during installation, it could take if from USB stick for example.
 
I wouldn't give up so easily if I were you, try these steps to see what will happen.
Get your hands any type of windows xp home or pro cd.
Put it in, and wait for setup to load up, once it does agree to microlosses terms and it will put you at the screen for any partitions that may show up.
If the C:drive shows up, delete the partiton with the windows xp disc, format the that partition windows xp.
Once it shows you how much free space you have, reboot the pc.
Load a stable clean dvd of windows 7 home,pro, or ultimate.
Once the windows 7 installation loads up you should see your partition ready to go, use that partition hit install and you should have no problems installing windows 7 after that.
If so, I recommend you download Hiren's Boot CD 10.1 and All Other Versions - HTTP Download

hmm i was told by Mak to format it n then use recovery software to get the stuff off it.
 
Alright let me ask what the purpose of using the XP CD is when Gparted can be used and is at least 3x faster than doing that process.

He isnt trying to format the Windows drive, but the partition. The partition that is corrupted. He is saying that using the Disk Management tool to try and format the drive is not allowing him to do so.

Am i correct so far?

Use Gparted. it is a free tool. It is very simple to use and at least 5x faster at formatting than anything Windows related. It looks like it does a quick format but in fact it isnt.

How do I completely remove all Operating Systems from my Hard drve? - Computer Forums

That thread there gives some advice on how to use Gparted correctly. Even links to the site for screenshots. Just so you can see what i am talking about.

Using Gparted to format the drive will not net you this error you are getting within Windows. After that use Recuva.
 
Alright let me ask what the purpose of using the XP CD is when Gparted can be used and is at least 3x faster than doing that process.

He isnt trying to format the Windows drive, but the partition. The partition that is corrupted. He is saying that using the Disk Management tool to try and format the drive is not allowing him to do so.

Am i correct so far?

Use Gparted. it is a free tool. It is very simple to use and at least 5x faster at formatting than anything Windows related. It looks like it does a quick format but in fact it isnt.

How do I completely remove all Operating Systems from my Hard drve? - Computer Forums

That thread there gives some advice on how to use Gparted correctly. Even links to the site for screenshots. Just so you can see what i am talking about.

Using Gparted to format the drive will not net you this error you are getting within Windows. After that use Recuva.

That is correct. I do have Gparted and know how to use it. I thought that i had to be on desktop to format and then use the recovery software, because i thought that once u turn off ur PC, the data is really gone n not stored in the HDD or RAM temporarly anymore. I will use Gparted then.
 
It doesnt matter if the PC is off, drive is disconnected or hasnt been used in over 6 years. The data is there until it is written over by more data or fully erased using something like KillDisk or DBan.
 
It doesnt matter if the PC is off, drive is disconnected or hasnt been used in over 6 years. The data is there until it is written over by more data or fully erased using something like KillDisk or DBan.

Really? I did not know that. Awesome thx!

Quick update: Having trouble recognizing the HDD with GParted Live. Error.
 
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