Hard Drive problem

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Hello Guys,

I need a little help here, I got myself in trouble.
I was installing Windows 2000 and got impatient and turned off the PC while the hard drive was being formated . As a result the boot sector got messed up.

I put the hard drive in a working PC to try and format it but it proved unsuccessful. Norton Partitionmagic did nothing either.

Does anyone know how to restore the hard drive to working order?????


Thanks all
 
lawbadman,

What did you use when attempting to format the first time, before going to Partition Magic? The Win2k disc?

edit: If you haven't done so already...when attempting to format from the CD-ROM, do NOT choose Quick Format. Choose the other option instead.

Were you not doing a clean format/install of Win2k when you turned it off and the MBR became corrupt? You should be able to simply reboot the pc and boot from the CD-ROM (might have to change boot sequence in BIOS to read from the disc before it attempts to load an OS from the hard drive, which is no big deal...takes like 5 seconds). If you had to change the boot order, save and exit the BIOS, which should reboot your PC. Afterwards, the Win2k installation CD-ROM should automatically start (might take a minute, just be patient before turning off your PC again, thinking something is wrong). Once it's done doing its thing and prompts you for input, just do what it says to delete the current partition, then format to NTFS, then reinstall. Your drive shouldn't be physically damaged at all, unless it just completely fried it and rendered it useless when you powered off, but I doubt that's the case. It is very possible though, however. And since this situation occurred during a format, the backup bootsector is likely gone, so that's probably not an option.
 
how about, Boot froma 3.5" floppy with win98 from bootdisk.com and run fdisk /mbr TADA

then run fdisk
then remove all partitions then add them. WOAH,,


At least your running windows 2000 and not vista :)

What type of hard drive is it ?

I know maxtor and seagate make a disk you can download and use to do this all too.


Jase
 
I changed the boot up sequence so it booted up from the win2k cd and not the HD, so the win2k installation started up and everything.
But it still takes forever to format the HD. Over a 17 hour period it only got to 15% and I got tired of waiting and shut it down.
I know it really is not suppose to take this long to format a HD even though its brand new.

Anyone know of a faster way to format this thing or did I just get a bad HD?
 
lawbadman said:
I changed the boot up sequence so it booted up from the win2k cd and not the HD, so the win2k installation started up and everything.
But it still takes forever to format the HD. Over a 17 hour period it only got to 15% and I got tired of waiting and shut it down.
I know it really is not suppose to take this long to format a HD even though its brand new.

Anyone know of a faster way to format this thing or did I just get a bad HD?


what kinda hard drive is it ?

Go to manufacturers website and download there tool, 17 hours wow that sounds lower then a low level format, there is something wrong, sounds like you need to make a bootdisk for windows 98 and boot off it and type in fdisk /mbr

www.bootdisk.com make a 3.5" floppy boot disk use window98 disk nothing else.

this should cure it, but first id start with the manufactures disk.
 
I just know I'm gonna get shouted down for this... happens every time. But if you want to be quite certain that there is no vestige of trouble on the drive before rebooting with the win98 boot floppy and then proceeding to FDISK then run a program called DBAN first. "Deriks Boot and Nuke". Easy to find in a google search. Takes 30sec to download and takes about 30mins to boot/erase the drive. The "nuke" word freaks people out, but there's nothing destructive about it. I've done this every time I've reformatted a drive (perhaps a hundred times now?) and been very pleased with the results.
 
Hi.

What size is the hard drive?
Use Win2000 or later for very large disks.


I have attached a zip file.
It contains a .exe file called MAXLLF.EXE.
This is a true low level format utility from MAXTOR.

It completely llf's the drive and remaps any visible bad sectors to the hidden table. (very useful if you are in the hard drive repair business!)

I obtained this utility from Maxtor when I was owner of a computer business. It will not work on all drives eg some Fujitsu (you don't use them, do you?) and some Seagate.

Warning. Once started, it is impossible to recover data. The disk is wiped.

To use, copy to a cd rom.
Boot the system using a system cd to the prompt.
Run maxllf from the cdrom. Follow the prompts.

After use, reboot with the system disk , FDISK then FORMAT, as usual.



Andy
 

Attachments

  • maxllf.zip
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Low level format from BIOS is maybe the solution.
But the problem is you cannot find low level format feature in modern BIOS. Luckly I have it in my 12years old PC.

I face same problem with you about 10 years ago, at that time my hard drive is Quantum Fireball 850mb. I don't even know, where the hard drive is now.
 
darw82 said:
Low level format from BIOS is maybe the solution.
But the problem is you cannot find low level format feature in modern BIOS. Luckly I have it in my 12years old PC.

I face same problem with you about 10 years ago, at that time my hard drive is Quantum Fireball 850mb. I don't even know, where the hard drive is now.


The reason why you don't see Low Level Format in Modern BIOS's is because modern hard drives cannot be Low Level Formatted by the end user in the same manner as old drives could be. Even the Low Level Format utilities available from manufactures for modern drives do not perform a true Low Level Format in the same sense as the BIOS utilities of yester-year. Modern drives have a true Low Level Format performed once at the factory and only certain things should be altered after that (a good reason to use the utility from the correct manufacturer if / when a low level format is required). Using an old Low Level Format BIOS utility on a modern drive can create also sorts of problems ranging from poor performance to turning your drive into a paper weight.
 
AudioFreak said:



The reason why you don't see Low Level Format in Modern BIOS's is because modern hard drives cannot be Low Level Formatted by the end user in the same manner as old drives could be. Even the Low Level Format utilities available from manufactures for modern drives do not perform a true Low Level Format in the same sense as the BIOS utilities of yester-year. Modern drives have a true Low Level Format performed once at the factory and only certain things should be altered after that (a good reason to use the utility from the correct manufacturer if / when a low level format is required). Using an old Low Level Format BIOS utility on a modern drive can create also sorts of problems ranging from poor performance to turning your drive into a paper weight.

Hi.

Agreed. However, MAXLLF is from Maxtor and as far as I know does perform a proper LLF . It is used by many companies that refurbish drives.

Provided the hard drive is correctly recognised by the bios ( ie no driver software is being used or the BIOS has been correctly set if not automatic ), no problems should result. I have never had a drive failure as a result of using MAXLLF and that is over 2000 drives personally and many thousands more by other users.

However, as I said previously, it has its limitations and does not work on some makes and types. It may also require several cycles of MAXLLF, FDISK and FORMAT to clear and remap all the bad sectors.

It is in my opinion an invaluable tool. Give it a try. What's to lose?


Finally, NEVER use the BIOS LLF !



Andy
 
lawbadman said:
Over a 17 hour period it only got to 15% and I got tired of waiting and shut it down.
I know it really is not suppose to take this long to format a HD even though its brand new.

Anyone know of a faster way to format this thing or did I just get a bad HD?

You're right, it should not take that long.
I've had a similar problem before, and it turned out the drive had a few too many bad sectors.
I would suggest using the guarantee.
 
I have a piece of software that i got at my work, we used it to wipe bank machine atm drives and government employee drives,

WE also have a piece of hardware that does the best so no one can recover the files, its called a Drill press and a 1/2" drill bit its pressed into & through the drive 4 times.
 
jleaman said:
[B

WE also have a piece of hardware that does the best so no one can recover the files, its called a Drill press and a 1/2" drill bit its pressed into & through the drive 4 times. [/B]


Data can still be recovered from drives that are only damaged. It takes time but that's why data recovery firms exist and charge so much!!

Andy
 
Thanks for all the help guys.

I wanted to try and make a win 2k boot disk but I dont have any floppys, I cant remember that last time I used one of those things.

Also my personal computers cd writer decided to crap out on me (or it could be a windows issue) so I cant use MAXLLF since I would have to burn it on a cd.

I started the win 2k install again last night and left it. I hope it will be done by the end of the week!!! In the mean time I will try and get my cd writer working again.



Thanks all.
 
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