reformat problems help plz

[lilstd]

Hey, a friend of mine is having this problem. I think his computer had a virus on it that changed the file format from ntfs to unknown. For this reason, windows doesnt seem to be booting up. Every time the windows image comes up on startup, the computer reboots itself.

And so, naturally, I decided to reformat using an XP pro cd as a bootup disk. However, every time i try to reformat the machine, the computer restarts halfway into the reformat. I havent tried using fdisk to reformat yet, but i'm not sure if this will solve my problems.

Any advice?

thanks in advance

 

[jbritt1234]

Try low-level formatting the disk. Check with the manufacturer for a utility, or just google for "low level format hard drive" and you will be able to find some.

Here is the Seagate page that eplains a little more. here

If the Low Level format fails, the HD is probably going bad. Baybe you got some sectors that have goine south.

 

[dWhisper]

Are you deleting the partition before you install XP? fdisk is nothing more than a wasted step in XP setup, unless there is very specific cause to use it. XP setup allows you to easily create and format the partition without ever using a DOS utility.

On the disk selection menu, just follow the prompts to first delete the partition. After it's gone, cold powerdown the system, leave it turned off for a few minutes, turn it back on and then boot back to the CD. Create your partition and then format it using the (Quick) options in Setup.

You can also look around for a diagnostic program from the manufacturer. Western Digital has Data Lifeguard Diagnostics, which is great for checking drives and hardware, and also performing a Low-Level, write Zeros option. This tool is also rewritten for Gateway computers as GWScan.

 

[lilstd]

will try things out tomorrow. thanks guys

 

[Ytru4u]

so how did things go?