hdd partition cant format

[pumaking82]

I'm trying to re-install winxp on my system however when I get to the pick a partition to install, immediately after choosing my HD to install a message says unable to format partition, I've tried fdisk, I tried formating from another pc via usb enclosure w/ my hdd in. it recognizes the drive but I cant format, now I cant even open my drive it freezes, however it still shows the volume plus the space size? any tools that will help me restore it?

[andiewill]

I'm trying to re-install winxp on my system however when I get to the pick a partition to install, immediately after choosing my HD to install a message says unable to format partition, I've tried fdisk, I tried formating from another pc via usb enclosure w/ my hdd in. it recognizes the drive but I cant format, now I cant even open my drive it freezes, however it still shows the volume plus the space size? any tools that will help me restore it?

Try partician magic, i had the same problem with an external drive and this piece of software solved it.

[alec]

I would not use Partition magic anymore. 8.5 messed up my patitions when I try to adjust them, it used to work okay with XP, but after the updates, I had problems. If you are still able to use xp. I would right click the Partition you are going to use then properties > tools > error checking. I had to do this on all my partitions for the computer to work okay again.

[faum72]

Try using hirens boot cd Hiren's BootCD 10.4 and All Other Versions - HTTP Download
it's a real good boot cd utillty, plus its free, download and burn tto cd and use the hard disk tools section, use active kills disk or something like wd clear, which will zero out all data, so you can run a fresh format. Hopefully your disk hasn't got a bunch of bad blocks/disk errors causing the trouble, there plenty of tools on this CD and you should be able too get too the bottom of the problem.....

[pawliukazz]

I'm trying to re-install winxp on my system however when I get to the pick a partition to install, immediately after choosing my HD to install a message says unable to format partition, I've tried fdisk, I tried formating from another pc via usb enclosure w/ my hdd in. it recognizes the drive but I cant format, now I cant even open my drive it freezes, however it still shows the volume plus the space size? any tools that will help me restore it?

yeah, i would definitely use hiren's boot cd. and if that doesn't help, maybe hdd crashed....

[Berzerker]

I'm trying to re-install winxp on my system however when I get to the pick a partition to install, immediately after choosing my HD to install a message says unable to format partition, I've tried fdisk, I tried formating from another pc via usb enclosure w/ my hdd in. it recognizes the drive but I cant format, now I cant even open my drive it freezes, however it still shows the volume plus the space size? any tools that will help me restore it?

You cannot use Fdisk on XP. That wil FUBAR the MBR ( which is exactly what it sounds like has happenned.

XP is rather limited in fixing corrupted MBR's.

However all is not lost. How important is the data on this drive?

If not terribly important you can go to the Hard Drive manufacturers website and download their HD Uttilities. Then you can format the HD properly to NTFS for XP. The HD mfg's tools are much more powerful than XP's. They can do low level format's, whereas XP cannot.

Note that this will blow away ALL data...so be warned!!!

If you need to recover the data, then you may be able to access the files using a Linux disto disc. You can burn a Linux OS to CD and run it off the CD.

The advantage to doing this is that LINUX will read ALL types of partitions, even ones that are unable to be seen by WinXP. Even some coruupted MBR partitions can be read.

Then pull your data with a third party program such as Acronis True Image, or just copy to an external drive.

BTW, what brand of HD do you have. If it's Western Digital, then they have a fully version of Acronis True Image available on their site. Only works with WD drives though.

Post back with results.

[Berzerker]

Addition to above post. If after reformatting with HD mfg's utility, XP still refuses to install post back.

Bad ram or a bad MB will cause failure of XP to install. MB failures are usually related to bad capacitors ( a big problem on some older4 MB's )

What make and model of MB do you have?