Installing Windows 2000 Server - Format gets to 100% then says disk is damaged

[TechBoyJK]

Hi,

I have tested all hard disks on other machines and have successfully installed, formated, etc. I use the disk on the suspect machine, and I get the error. The suspect machine is an IBM aptiva K6 450Mhz w/256MB ram. It has a basic 32X cd drive that works in the machine without error. Anytime I hook up a hard drive to the machine, 2GB-120GB, it will run Windows 2000 setup fine until it gets to the formating part. It will format ntfs up to 100%, but instead of moving on to install setup files, it spits up an error saying could not format disk. Disk may be damaged. Well, I have tried the same "damaged" disks on other machines and they work perfect. I have swapped the ide cables on the suspect machine several times. The cables work on other machines. I'm frustrated. What can be wrong?

 

[DannyBoy]

I cant answer your question about what could be wrong, but I can suggest you try formatting from the command prompt.

Boot from a dos disk, or from a command enabled boot disk like the win98 disk, and try running nt's format.com using ntfs.

If you still get errors then hopefully someone else can answer your question, if you dont then you should be able to run setup without a problem.

I would also run the appropriate diagnostics tools for the hard drive just to be sure there is nothing wrong with the drive.

Dan

 

[TechBoyJK]

Here is the thing, I get the same error no matter what drive I use. I have several hard drives, 4GB, 12GB, 15GB, 60GB, 120GB, and the suspect machine gives the same error for every drive. I can take these drives and put them in another machine, and every one works fine, no errors.

 

[TechBoyJK]

=)

 

[josedawg]

Heh, I'm having the SAME exact problem on my machine that I'm putting up right now. I'm in the process of installing Win2k Pro NOT Server, seeing as Server version doesnt seem to want to work. If you find out why this is happening, let me know. It's not a hardware problem.

 

[TechBoyJK]

Are you using an AMD chipset? I am wondering if the AMD K6 chipset is the problem. I have tried new cables. I don't think its hardware, how could it get all the way through the setup process as far as formatting and make it all the way to 100% and then crash?

 

[wetcat007]

I get this error too, I have no idea why, it only happens on NTFS. I just use a WinXP disk to format the hd instead..

 

[chocoruacal]

Originally posted by: TechBoyJK
Here is the thing, I get the same error no matter what drive I use. I have several hard drives, 4GB, 12GB, 15GB, 60GB, 120GB, and the suspect machine gives the same error for every drive. I can take these drives and put them in another machine, and every one works fine, no errors.

Format using FAT. Test the RAM...let Memtest run overnight. Swap PS's. Then consider that the board is fooked.

 

[TechBoyJK]

Well, its my friend's PC. He moved in with his GF and she has a much better PC. So he just took out the HDD and added it into her's. He gave me the system. It was running fine until we took out the drive. Ever since I have tried installing a new drive, I get the error. Could this be a BIOS issue? Cable issue? WTF? I don't want to waste a board that could be a perfectly good file server or web server.