format c:

[smurph]

Prior to reinstall of winXP, tried to format c: (NTFS), but at the end an error message said that it had failed. But, the quick NTFS format was successful!
Anyone any reasons as to why, and ways to investigate/resolve?

cheers smurph

 

[Roshi229]

you will want to run scandisk

 

[smurph]

How do I do this in XP?
I've since re-installed everything, do you advise starting again?

Thnx smurph

 

[Roshi229]

hmm if you have a win. 98 boot disk, i believe it's on that
if not http://www.bootdisk.com/ to make one.
there may be an error on the hard drive. doing the fast format only rewrites the Partition tables. and wouldn't have found an error deeper on the hard drive
also you can right click the drive in windows xp and select properties... go to the tools tab it is there

 

[kopenhagen]

hmm if you have a win. 98 boot disk, i believe it's on that
if not http://www.bootdisk.com/ to make one.

Is it Win 98 SE?

Do I have to format NTFS? WHICHONE IS BETTER?

 

[Apokalipse]

I saw an NTFSDOS file, which allows you to access NTFS drives from a DOS boot disk, can't remember where though

I recommend formatting through DOS,
you might be able to format to NTFS with the NTFSDOS file, but if you can't, at least format to FAT32 since you have a 40GB drive, and then convert to NTFS

 

[pt1]

You could also try going to the Hard Drives manufacture's web site and downloading their hard disk utility to check the disk for errors. Just remember that most of these utilities wipe out all info on the drive.

Patrick

 

[Apokalipse]

there is Seatools, which I've used a few times

 

[TheMajor]

No need for format. The Win98 bootdisk is not the same as Win98. Its just a DOS bootdisk with stuff like FDISK and CD-ROM drivers required to load Win98 from CD.

I would use your XP disc, boot with ir.. press "R" at some point in the menu's to load the recovery console.

Then type:
chkdsk /r

to scandisk for bad sectors etc.

Quick format and normal format are the same, except that the long format also scans for errors.