FORMATING

[RICHARD.BRYON]

can any one tell me how to format a hard drive what im getting is trying to recover allocation units which seem to go on for ever

[tjaymadison]

This is usually an indication of physical damage to the drive. You should run a full or thorough ScanDisk, to check the integrity of the drive.

------------------
"When I nod my head, hit it with the hammer."
(Moe, holding nail, to Curly, holding hammer)

[RICHARD.BRYON]

how can i run scan disk when there is no operating system on the drive i have looped it on as a slave formatted it that way so i no there is nothink on it tried scan disk it is still tying to recover allocation units on hard drive i have had this before there is a way of doing it i just dont no how i would appreciate any help from any one out there i like the site come on folks give us a hand there must be another way of formatting ect sorted this drive out computer whizz can do them they charge good as well would sooner get another drive than pay or pay to find out ? overclocked under ventilated ps it is windows 98se trying to put on thats by the by come on folk

[steveo]

not sure if this will help you but I usually run a diagnostic program, like microscope, which allows you to run a host of programs including scandisk, format & fdisk. Such programs are on a single floppy and you put the disk in the drive, boot the pc and follow instructions.

good luck

[RICHARD.BRYON]

Originally posted by steveo:
not sure if this will help you but I usually run a diagnostic program, like microscope, which allows you to run a host of programs including scandisk, format & fdisk. Such programs are on a single floppy and you put the disk in the drive, boot the pc and follow instructions.

good luck

thanks for reply where is microscope avaliable from is it download able can it be used with suposedly nothink on the hard drive

[tjaymadison]

It's quite difficult to read and decipher your posts when you write one continuous sentence that runs on for six lines with no punctuation. You obviously must have a working computer if you are here. If the suspect hard drive is the slave, and you have Windows installed and running on the master, why can't you run ScanDisk from the master? The slave does not have to be formatted to do this.

------------------
"When I nod my head, hit it with the hammer."
(Moe, holding nail, to Curly, holding hammer)

[This message has been edited by tjaymadison (edited 04-22-2001).]

[steveo]

richard...the microscope program I use was purchased by the tech lab I work at. I have no idea if it's available otherwise. I've use it on hd's with no o/s. It works simular to a o/s boot disk in that it installs a few files (dos I would imagine)that allows the program to operate without a o/s present.

"the more I know about computers the less I know about computers"

[mjc]

You can also look on the drive manufacturers website for the diagnostics programs for that particular drive. They are usually a free download for the owner of the drive.

------------------
mjc
Links list:Computer Links (http://www.fortunecity.com/skyscraper/highrise/11/index.htm)

468th Rule of Aquistion: Debugging of software is foolish, there is much profit in updates and upgrades.

[RICHARD.BRYON]

Originally posted by steveo:
not sure if this will help you but I usually run a diagnostic program, like microscope, which allows you to run a host of programs including scandisk, format & fdisk. Such programs are on a single floppy and you put the disk in the drive, boot the pc and follow instructions.

good luck thanks for that richard

[RICHARD.BRYON]

Originally posted by tjaymadison:
It's quite difficult to read and decipher your posts when you write one continuous sentence that runs on for six lines with no punctuation. You obviously must have a working computer if you are here. If the suspect hard drive is the slave, and you have Windows installed and running on the master, why can't you run ScanDisk from the master? The slave does not have to be formatted to do this.

the suuspect harddrive, is not meant to be a slave,it is of another computer that had win2000,has i have gave it,the kids im trying to get win98se,on it.all im getting is windows needs to format,harddrive.it then keeps trying to recover,allocation units looped on,to my other computer,run scandisk its doing the same.?

[Randy_tx]

itsoundstomelikeadeadharddrive

------------------
Will XP save Me ?

[sea69]

http://www.PCGuide.com/ubb/smile.gif too much Randy http://www.PCGuide.com/ubb/smile.gif lol

------------------
pending

[AwARe]

Richard, as unfortunate as it may seem, the only way youre really ever going to be able to use that drive, is to suffer through the scandisk repairs.........

How old is this drive and what kind?

Many mfg's have waranties that cover such things and in allot of cases you can send them the drive and they will send you a new one.....

This is evidence that your drive has bad sectors..........
in other words the drive is damaged.........

There is a command switch I think for scandisk that will make it run and fix the errors without making you hit the enter key every 15 mins. but Im not sure what it is...........maybe someone else does?

At any rate I went through all that once with a HDD and it only ended up lasting 6 or so months after that anyways........so was kinda a waste of time...............

Hope this helped!

[Paleo Pete]

This one is a bit confusing, but I'll try...

1. When format goes through the "trying to recover lost allocation units" routine, it's a definite indication of physical damage to the hard drive. No matter how much you may want to save it, the drive is damaged and probably won't last long if you do. The drive installation utilities available from the manufacturer's website will have no more success than scandisk at recovering the drive, it's physically damaged.

2. Scandisk should do the trick, if it can be done, or you can try the installation software already mentioned, both will do essentially the same thing. To use scandisk here's the command line I use for an unattended scandisk that will automatically fix errors and run a surface scan also.

scandisk_c:_/autofix_/nosummary_/surface and use spaces in place of the underscores ( _ ) used here. If you're doing this to the slave drive, use D: in place of C:

3. No Operating System is necessary to run scandisk, it can be run on a totally empty drive as long as the scandisk utility is included on your start up disk, and if you're using a win98 start up disk it should be there. The win98 start up disk creates a virtual ramdrive and loads all the necessary utilities to that drive for use until you shut down the computer. That includes scandisk, format, fdisk and several others.

In this case I would recommend running scandisk from DOS instead of trying it from Windows, which gives you more control. In windows you don't have the command line options that are available in DOS. Use a win98 start up disk.

No OS is necessary to run the manufacturer's utilities either, they are designed to be run from a floppy. If you download the manufacturer's drive utilities, boot to a start up disk then swap to the disk with the utilities on it, that should work fine. The manufacturer's website should have instructions posted too, look around or check for a readme file with the downloaded software.

In summary, I think the drive is gone, it's physically damaged. Even if you do get scandisk to finish and repair the errors, it will only get worse. If you do get it up and running, run scandisk fairly often, if it keeps finding more errors, the drive is gone.

------------------
So many idiots, and only six bullets...
Note: Please post your questions on the forums, not in my email.

Computer Information Links (http://www.geocities.com/paleopete/)

[Pete Burke]

WOW!! I wish I would have found this thread 2 days ago.
This site is the best.