Hard drive partitions


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Hi

I have a Maxtor 40GB hard drive that until now, worked without a problem.

The problem began when I tried to reinstall Windows XP Professional the other day.

As usual, I chose to Quick Format as NTFS - Setup continued as normal, until after I entered my networking information (IP, Workgroup, etc) in the WinXP Wizard. It then tried to copy some files over from the CD. But apparantly it couldnt find any of the files it needed on the CD. I took the CD out, put it back in, and tried again. It didnt work. I put it in another drive. Still no luck. I tried another CD. Nope.

So I restarted the Setup, and went through exactly the same steps. Same problem.

OK. I decided to do a Normal Format as NTFS (the long one). After it formatted to 100%, Setup stopped with an error message telling me it couldnt format it and that maybe the hard drive was damaged.

Getting a bit annoyed now. I restarted the Setup, and went through the same steps. Same error - it couldnt format it as NTFS and that maybe my hard drive was damamged.

So I dragged out the Maxtor diagnosis tools and ran through some 2 hours of tests. At the end of it, the diagnosis tool declared the drive error free. I also did a low level format on the drive taking some 3 hours, and that also worked fine.

Attempted Setup again - chose Normal Format as NTFS. SAME ERROR!!

So I tried formatting as FAT32. Got to 100%, and then exactly the same error - it was unable to format the hard drive.

Getting extremely ****ed off at this stage as I needed the PC urgently, I used a set of Partition Magic 7 rescue disks, and created the NTFS partition there. I also tested for errors, and the drive was declared error free.

Loaded the Setup program, and chose the PM7 partitioned partition (which had UNKNOWN next to it). Hit enter, and this time a new errror message - This time saying that the partition selected was full, or in an illegal file system format, or that the disk is damaged.

I've checked the MS Support KB and I've found nothing about my problem.

This problem is really ****ing me off. Any one else had this happen to them? Or any idea what to do?

Could the drive be faulty, despite what the Maxtor diagnosis tool says? (Will be giving the computer manufactor a call tomorrow, but even then it'll take at least a week before someone can come out and replace the drive - I *really* need to use the computer).

Any help would be greatly appreciated

--

David

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Have you tried to partition the drive during the XP install into 2 FAT32 or NTFS partitions?? Just allow one partition to be created and then create or merge the empty space later. I had problems with this before and it turned out to be my cd. If you want more information on what I did, AIM me @ azerch. I will explain more on there. I hope this helps.

azerchXP

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