Formating a hard disk?

[tony draper]

How would I go about formating a hard disk that has a corrupted boot sector? the disk has XP pro on it but will no longer boot,it works ok as a slave, or rather it worked long enough as a slave long enough for me to copy the stuff I wanted across to the new disk ok.
From past experience I have formated corrupted hard disks reloaded the operating system and they went on to lead useful lives for a couple of years.
Tiz a 40 gig disk and not that old, but I know I cannot format it from a old windows rescue disk as I used to do when I was running win 98,as there does not seem to be the equivalent of a rescue disk with the format command for XP
A Greatfull for any help.
PS I have the Win XP pro upgrade cd,but it is not bootable,so I cannot use that, dunno if it even has the Format command on it,I also have Win 98SE that will format a disk but If I recall correctly refuses to do so because it reconns the operating system on the disk I want to wipe is a later version on windows than itself.
Why don't they leave things alone? formating a disc with the win98 rescue was easy peasy.

[kwachon]

Just format the disk with Win 98 then install XP, it will look at the hard drive and ask if you want to use the full capacity, say yes and away you go, NTFS that is.

[tony draper]

Think I tried that with a disk I had with a snide copy of win2k installed on it, I just could not get win 98 cd to format the disk, if I recall correctly it saw the disk as having a later version of windows installed as described above.

Tony
Will try that anyway but why the NTFS file system??alus formated me disks to FAT

[kwachon]

NTFS affords better security and the XP will recognize the size of the hard disk thus allowing you to use all of it during the format instead of partitioning it.

1. NTFS is the best file system for large drives. Unlike FAT and FAT32, performance with NTFS isn't corrupted as drive size increases.
2. One of the major security features in NTFS is encryption or, in other words, the process of disguising a message or data in such a way as to hide its substance.
3. Another feature in NTFS is disk quotas. It gives you the ability to monitor and control the amount of disk space used by each user.
4. Using NTFS, you can keep access control on files and folders and support limited accounts. In FAT and FAT32, all files and folders are accessible by all users no matter what their account type is.
5. Domains can be used to tweak security options while keeping administration simple.
6. Compression available in NTFS enables you to compress files, folders, or whole drives when you're running out of disk space.
7. Removable media (such as tapes) are made more accessible through the Remote Storage feature.
8. Recovery logging helps you restore information quickly if power failures or other system problems occur.

[kwachon]

Found this, hope it helps.

Formatting and Installing from the Windows XP CD

Steps

1
Step One

This section explains how to reformat a drive from the Windows XP installation CD. This can be used when installing a fresh copy of Windows onto a computer. Here it is especially important to backup all of your important information because upon formatting you will lose EVERYTHING that used to be on the drive. This includes all applications and device drivers, so you must back up everything you can.

2
Step Two

Insert your Windows XP installation disc into your CD drive (Home or Pro--it does not matter).

3
Step Three

Restart your computer. On the first screen that comes up as your computer starts it should say at the bottom a key that you can press to change the Boot Sequence (may also be called Boot Device or Boot Order). Press whatever key is specified. If your computer does not give you the option to change the boot sequence directly from the startup screen you will need to enter your BIOS Setup by pressing whichever key your computer specifies for Setup. From the BIOS setup you need to change your boot order so that the CD drive is before Hard Disks. If all you see right when your computer starts up is a splash screen with the computer manufacturer's name, press the 'Esc' key to display which keys to press for boot sequence or BIOS setup.

4
Step Four

Now as you computer boots a little more it will say “Press any key to boot from CD..” press a key to do so.

5
Step Five

The CD will load up a blue screen and then spend a while loading files it needs. When it is finished it will list a few options, mainly “Press ENTER to set up Windows XP.” Press Enter or Return.

6
Step Six

Now you will be at a screen to select where to install Windows to. This is where you can delete old partitions and format drives. The box in the bottom half of the screen shows all your drives and the partitions that exist on them. Use the Up and Down arrow keys to highlight your “C:” partition and press the 'D' key (if all that shows up is “Unpartitioned space” and you have no C: or D: partitions, skip this step). On the next screen press the 'L' key to finalize deleting the partition.

7
Step Seven

Now you are back on the screen to choose where to install Windows. The box on the lower half of the screen should no longer show a partition but simply have an entry “Unpartitioned space xxxxxMB.” Select this with the arrow keys and press the 'C' key to create a partition on the drive. The next screen tells you the minimum and maximum sizes the partition can be and lets you pick the size. The default size is the maximum, but double check that the number entered is the maximum and hit enter.

8
Step Eight

Now you will again be back at the choose where to install Windows screen. But this time you will have a partition that looks something like this “C: Partition1 [New (Raw)]xxxxxxMB.” Highlight this entry and press enter.

9
Step Nine

The next screen lets you choose which file system to format the drive with. If your computer will be sharing files over a network with a Windows ME, 98 or 95 computer, select “FAT32.” Otherwise choose NTFS as it is faster and more secure. If the drive is brand new and has never been used before then use one of the options that ends in “(Quick).” Or, choose one of the lower down options. Use the arrow keys to select the proper one and press Enter or Return.

10
Step Ten

From here you are all set and the installation of Windows will proceed starting with a format of your drive. This will take a while (over half an hour) so you can take a little break.


Tips & Warnings

• YOU MUST BACKUP BEFORE FORMATTING OR YOU WILL LOSE DATA YOU NEED.

[tony draper]

The trouble is the XP pro disk I have is not bootable, ie if I select boot from CD in bios it will not boot from the CD,it is meant to update a machine that already has a operating system,in my case windows 98SE.
If you have a brand new hard disk,ie unformated, you change the boot sequence from boot from Hard Disk to boot from CD in bios, the puter boots up happily from the Windows 98se CD,sees a unformated disk and offers to format same for you,if it sees a disk that is already formated with a existing operating system it does not,it is different from the dos based rescue disk,where one simply used the dos command "Format",and it did not matter what was on the disk it went ahead and formated the disk I don't have that option.
Thanks for the help one shall give it a go tomorrow.

[Saab Dastard]

AFAIR you can use an XP upgrade CD to do a clean install. The installation process will have a step requiring the insertion of the qualifying OS CD (Win 98 in your case) so that M$ can verify your upgrade rights.

I'm pretty sure that a pukka XP Upgrade disk is bootable (I have done this a couple of times for friends and relations).

A win 98 CD may fail to format a disk if the partition is too large, or is already partitioned and formatted with a file system that it cannot recognise (e.g. NTFS, UNIX etc.).

SD

[Loose rivets]

I'm going back perhaps as much as 15 years, and only have vague memory of the procedures, but Tony sounds as though he may have a bd boot sector or two. When hard disks were over a thousand quid for a 330 Mb. I would get up to all sorts of tricks to help people who I might woo away from their existing dealer.

The latest drives just may not be applicable, I just don't know, but here's what I would do up to about 1999. Oh, BTW, I don't have any software now that would do the job. What's needed is the soft for that disk, that will do a low-level format. Are such programs available? But if not......



When I was certain that the existing low-level format was finished, I would re-format it with a simple utility that would give a linear format. That is to say that all the cylinders had the same number of sectors. Okay, that reduced the capacity and indeed the speed, but surprisingly a user couldn't really notice the difference.

Then getting it going was a matter of F-disk and ordinary formatting. Now, here's a thing. I could cheat by putting a DOS 6.22 operating system on, hanging in a 1.44 flop if needed. Then pushing it up to whatever windows was current. I did this for years, right through to 98SE if I'm not mistaken.

[tony draper]

I don't have a problem installing operating systems on hard disks ,I have been building and upgrading my own machines since the original pentium first came out,the problem I have is to format a hard disk and thereby remove a corrupt operating system from same, it has a broken XP installed upon it,I want a clean formated disk,I could try and format it using a old win98 rescue floppy,that would work but I don't think it was designed to deal with the size of modern hard disks,from past experience t reports the size as incorrect,the problem is the windows 98 CD will not format it because it scans the hard disk see the disk already formated and has a later operating system and refuses to do anything,I cannot format it from the XP disk because it is not a bootable disk.
Hmmm just had a thought can I install the duff hard disk as a slave to the new hard disk and format it from the new primary hard disk?,think I tried this once with a win98 disk but it did not work,mebee it will work with XP.
Bring back Dos I say

[Dysonsphere]

As Paris said have done that several times it wil also allow to look at slave drive and recover any data you need. I would scan the corrupeted drive with an anti virus just in case you never know.

[tony draper]

Tiz a bit dodgy Mr Dakar,tried it once under similar circumstances,both disks with win 98 installed one had gone Tango Uniform,installed the knackered one as a slave,entered into dos and typed C: format D:it really porked it, I think it tried to format its own self ie the C: drive or format the D: as a floppy,moment of panic before I yanked the power chord.
Most of the time I have been able to recover duff Hard disks long enough to recover stuff off em I wanted,even took the lid off one once and wiggled the read arms about,it worked fine as a slave and it lived long enough for me to recover my music files an such for about twenty minutes before giving up the ghost.
I usually keep a new hard disk with a clean install of operating system and drivers on me book shelf,if I a hint of trouble from the master in the spare goes and I'm back in business in five minutes.

This is the Draper home made Super Puter from a few years ago, you can see how it was so easy to swap hard disks over.

[amanoffewwords]

Some useful info on this site: www.bootdisk.com .

[green granite]

Tony, make it a slave, double click on my computer, right click on the slave drive letter (probably "E") click format, job done

[DB6]

Assuming you have a floppy drive on your machine, you can download XP bootable floppy discs here http://support.microsoft.com/kb/310994 , then slap in your CD at the appropriate point. I had the same problem, they worked for me, although the fact that you have an upgrade CD may be a sticking point.