Faulty Hard Drive According to Windows

[chrigil]

I tried reformatting my computer the other day and half way through the format I got an error message telling me:

Unable to install Windows on this partition. The disk maybe damaged.

Fair enough I thought, the HDD is fairly old (although not rediculously old) so I got a nearly new HDD from another computer and tried reformatting that. Incidently, I did use the manufacturers disk checking utility and it told me my HDD was perfectly ok.

Imagine my suprise when Windows decided to announce:

Unable to install Windows on this partition. The disk maybe damaged!!!

This is crazy. I don't accept that 2 HDD's are faulty and my HDD manufacturer's disk utility seems to agree with me.

What could be the problem?

Could it be a Mobo problem or what?

Any advice you can offer is appreciated.

 

[SHAWN]

Try formating the drives in another machine. Replace IDE cables and try different channels

 

[Rouen]

Ahahaha I had that problem.

Were you reinstalling Windows when you formatted? It happened to me. Guess what the problem was? Damaged INSTALLATION CD. Take the CD to a shop and have it buffed if the CD is scratched up. If the CD is not scratched up, the likelyhood of two hard drives, one old and one new, is extremely low. Somes like another problem, I feel confidant that its just the CD, try to get another one if you can. Good Luck!

 

[C0RR0SIVE]

Yea allways make a back up of your cd's (hehehe)

 

[Qiranworms]

How about using a boot disk to do the job? Avoid the Windows formatting utility and start the installation after formatting the drive with something else...

Additionally, disk checking and other hardware diagnostics utilities are not always accurate and can't be completely depended on, so there is still a chance of damage, and your best way to determine that is if another 'formatter' also can't do it.

 

[chrigil]

How about using a boot disk to do the job? Avoid the Windows formatting utility and start the installation after formatting the drive with something else...

Can you recommend a good utility for this sort of thing? I was using KillDisk to perform a Low Level format but was warned that a Low Level Format can seriously mess up my disk, permanently.

Any ideas?

 

[Rouen]

Its always best to do a High Level Formatting, which is Logical Formatting. It creates NTFS if your using Windows XP. Do this for me first. Go into Windows XP Command line, and type the command CHKDSK on the hard drives your trying to get to work. If there is a bad sector, it will come up in the report..... I can't remember the switch you type with the command that causes it to automatically flag bad sectors so they aren't used. I'm on a MAC laptop (until my PC is fixed) so I can't check it.

 

[Him]

If all else fails, you can try to 'low level' format it. I know, you can only zero the drive and not low level format, since that is not done outside the factory, so dont bother saying anything about that.

http://seagate.com/support/disc/drivers/discwiz.html

Get the starter edition, make a bootdisk. Follow the instructinos. It will take a while, a LONG time, depending on the size of your drive. It took meabout 5 hours to do a 60 GB sata 7200rpm. But more often than not that gets a drive working when Windows kicks it out. It worked for me, so why not you?