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Windows XP Won't fomat HD

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8 replies

by charles.patch

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Daughters maching crashed and I bought a new small HD 80 Gig and went to reinstall XP and can only get to the screen that says if you want to format the new Drive hit enter and there it sits. Have done this numerous time previously with no problems. Tried another HD and the same thing happened. Changed cables no luck. Any ideas. Thanks

8 replies

by robo_dev

What type of PC?

Make sure bios has been reset to factory defaults and that the hard drive is recognized in bios.

Some bios settings such as 'use plug and play os' can play a part in this.

The motherboard bios may need to be upgraded.

To test the ide controller on the mobo, plug the cd-rom into it and see if the xp install will boot from there as well...just in case there's a hardware fault.

by charles.patch

XP Pro will boot from the CD drive to the ppoint in installation where it wants to format the new HD.

by ken

If you do then format the drive in another computer then try againn. More likely though that you have a hardware issue or scatched CD.
You might want to try a memory test (which will confirm motherboard hardware since the test won't work if the hardware is bad)
http://oca.microsoft.com/en/windiag.asp

by charles.patch

I have tried three different copies of XP PRO and all react the same. Will try another computer. Good idea.

by ken

You have tried different hard drives and different cds and cables.
1) You should try a different IDE channel. I have had 1 channel go bad without the other.
2) Run the MEM test to test hardware.
3) Have you updated the BIOS? I have an HP laptop (N610c) that will ONLY install with XP sp2 after I did the BIOS update. I thought I had a dead MB but then tried XPsp2 disk and it installed!!!

by computercookie

What sort of hard drive is it, how do you know the HDD was the faulty component?

by charles.patch

The first issue was the computer would not turn on, so I replaced the Power Supply, then the HD would not load or loaded very very slowly and only in safe mode would it boot, so I tried to replace the HD and that is when I got the problem of not formating.

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