i have a 40 gb quantum AT fireball Plus AS its not a new drive i got it from a friend and i want to make it a slave drive but i cannot format it to reinstall an os on it can any one recommened a program that i can use to do this any help is really appricated i need help bad i tryed to do it but no success no boot up or anything so please helpppppp me !!!!!!!!

Can you see it in BIOS when booting up?
I would get the manufacturers' utility downloaded and zero fill and format it with their utilities. Should be Maxtor's utility as they bought Quantum a while back.

umm i can see it in the bios it says quantum but it wont boot or i try to format but it wont work i also tried a utlity called dariks boot-n-nuke still wouldnt work do u have the links to any of these utilitys so i can get this finished thaks so much for you help

I Googled this one, look halfway down the page for ZDISK.exe.
http://www.ameriwebs.net/groupworks/index.html
This is for the original Quantum utility per the site.

I just worked on and fixed an oldish PC that had a Quantum Fireball in it. I thought about slicking that drive as a part of the repair. You may well be out of luck. I went to the Quantum site and it says they sold their HDD business to Maxtor several years ago. They refer you to the Maxtor home page. I found nothing related to the Fireball, but then I didn't look for very long. Take a look and maybe you'll find something--don't hold out much hope, though. :(

EDIT: Leave it to one of these guys to find a needle in a haystack :p PrntRhd...where were you last weekend when I needed that info? Ah well, I got the bugs out without slicking it. Runs nice now.

thatnks sooo much im going to go try it and ill post the results brb

ok it didnt work it says it didnt find the drive any other ideals

i want to make it a slave drive but i cannot format it to reinstall an os
One doesn't usually want to install an OS on a slave drive.

Which OS are you hoping to reinstall and how have you been trying to format this drive? From a boot floppy or from within windows (and if so which version).

Is the drive recognised in Device Manager? If memory serves these fireballs were prone to burning out the firmware on the HDD controller card. This made the drives fail even though still recognised in the BIOS - but a diagnostic utility should sort that out for you.

i was tryin anything to get it to work like just to test it with 98 and im tryin from a boot disk like f-disk but i have no ideal wut the prob is

I wouldn't hold my breath after reading through: http://www2.geek.com/discus/messages/6874/1337.html

ok it didnt work it says it didnt find the drive any other ideals
Which program didn't work (sorry I couldnt get to the zdisk link for some reason). You could try the maxtor utility or seagate's seatools. A lot of such utilities will let you run generic tests on drives other than their own make.

If the drive appears in the BIOS, not in Device Manager and is not "seen" by fdisk or HDD diagnostic utilities then I would be inclined to call it a day.

f- disk didnt work as well as the one link i got up there dint work and boot-n-nuke have u guys ever ran into this problem

For the third time - does the drive appear in Device Manager? I suspect not and that your drive is toast.

i cant even get it started it doesnt even go to the os load screen it wont go past the very first turn on screen

and paul can u help me out with bart p.e i heard that u know how do do that particular program

u can close this forum if you want i just need to know where to post about bart pe

Posting in Programming SIF is OK, or here.

I must be a bit slow on the uptake but I thought this was a slave drive you were trying to format and not a master on which to install an OS. So is this the only HDD attached to this computer?

If it is the only drive - I would still think it unlikely that this HDD is functional (unless you know it still works in its original or on another computer).

I haven't made a BartPE CD in a while though if you are hoping to access this HDD with it I would be surprised if it becomes visible to a BartPE-CD, when its own diagnostic floppy has been unable to see it in the first place.

Its not that hard to make a basic BartPE-CD. Download the latest version. Have your WinXP installation CD and CD burning software at the ready. Run the exe and follow the wizard. Burn the iso it makes onto a CD.

Use CDRW until you are happy with the results. Once you get that working you can start adding plug-ins for a wide range of programs. This is where it usually begins to get a bit complicated and is the stage when one may want a bit of help. Read the help files that come with the program and the advice on the website. Then ask on the Bart forums or post back here for any specific advice. I would ask any specific questions in a new "programming" thread after explaining the stages you had already tried.