harddisk formatting problems...

[VJ]

A friend of mine has problems with formatting his harddrive. He wants 1 big partition (of 80GB), the harddisk is a WDC, the computer is made by Dell.

His computer crashed, and formatting the drive yielded strange noises (clicking) at around 50%, so we had it replaced (Dell sent us a new disk; I installed it). Yesterday, he tried to format the new drive (it came in a sealed packing), and XP mentions it cannot format the disk possibly because of an error on the disk (at about 95%).

Could he be that unlucky ? Or is there something else causing this (XP problems with 80 GB partition ? problem with controller ?) ?

Thanks!


Jörg

[The PIT]

Sounds dodgy to me. Try it with pqmagic but it sounds like the drive is damaged.

[VJ]

pqmagic, is that the same as Partition Magic ?
(unfortunutaly, I don't have Partition Magic... If it is not the same, could you provide a link ?)

The fact that it is the second drive with which it occured, is just bad luck ...?


Jörg

[Marshmallowman]

Probably unlucky, but it may be a dodgy IDE controller.

[VJ]

So it would be best to send the computer as a whole back... (instead of just the disk) ?
The computer is still covered by warranty (IIRC until the third week of January).


Jörg

[MJA]

Try splitting it into 2 40Gig partitions and formatting them. This will nail down a disk or controller issue.

Also - you CAN quick format an 80 gig drive - that might be worth a go and then run a chkdisk on it.

[ayoub_ibrahim]

just checking but are you using NTFS?
max fat32 partition size you can make with xp is 32GB!

[chaoliang]

I would try to format the disk with another computer to make sure, that the HD is OK.

[VJ]

Ok, thanks for all the suggestions ! The friend is a computer illiterate, so I'll have to go there myself....

Dell stated that they will provide support, if we test the drive with a different cable, scan the disk with test software and perform a test upon boot (ctrl-alt-d). They apparently need the results of those tests...


Jörg

[Evildead666]

those tests include a surface scan, and can take hours.
I have already had probs with Dell stuff, and its pretty long.
You virtually have to diagnose the problem before contacting them.

They are quick tho...

[VJ]

Well, apparently, the Dell software gave an error. He called them, and they will pick up the computer this week. According to their predictions, he'd have it back before Christmas...


Jörg