Hi, My hard drive has started playing up (no hardware showing in device manager, no USB ports) so before the ship sinks I have bought a new HDD and am trying to install XP Pro onto it from an installation disk, so I can then go on and transfer all my files etc to the new drive. I get to the stage of 100% formatting completed and I get a message saying setup was unable to format the partition. The disk may be damaged. How can I find out what the exact problem is? I am a computer div so don't blind me with science please. Thankyou.
Run the setup/diagnostics disk that came with your harddrive. For more info, please state the make and model of your hard drive and maybe we can direct you to the appropriate vendor's site to download the tools.
have you run a scandisk on your old hard drive? maybe theres nothing wrong with that drive. What you describe sounds more like a motherboard problem. If there is a input/output problem with the motherboard, you'll have problems formatting the new hard drive.
Computer help Here is a fairly easy guide to solve many computer problems, try this to determine if it is your motherboard, I think Jony218 may have the problem figured out due to the odds of two hard drives being bad on the same system. Try the diagnostics program for both of your drives and see if any errors are present, if not then follow the trouble shooting guide and see what happens.
Often a sign of bad ram or a faulty ide controller on the mobo. People forget cables and jumper settings too. Many times pulling one stick of ram or swapping an ide cable cures these.
Carlybar i to had that problem (seagate 160gb) finally i emailed the company for advice, i simple deleted the drive. no more problems. xp loaded without a hitch.You didnt specify if you are using 2 hardrives or what brand of hard drive you have.If you have fixed your problem good let the forum know.
