WINXP Setup reports 8mb Unpartitioned space!

[buddytod]

Hi everyone,
I could use a bit of help please! PC was running fine. Playing an MP3 file in media player when blue screen appeared with fatal error message. On rebooting the standard message of 'Start normally/in Safe mode' etc appeared. Would not start normally, Last known good config failed and would not boot into safe mode! Decided to format and reinstall. Bios detects HDD correctly with correct size (160Gb). When I run Windows setup it offers unpartitioned space for C as Minimum 8Mb and Maximum 8Mb. Can I assume that the HDD has 'had it' ?
Many thanks.

[saphalline]

Woah! Sounds like your entire partition data got messed up. At this point, you'll have to download the utility from the manufacturer of your hard drive. Have it run through the tests and see what's wrong (or hopefully not wrong) with that hard drive. You can also have the utility (or another utility for some manufacturers) wipe the drive for you so that Windows Setup sees a fresh-from-the-factory hard drive.

[Sylvander]

Killdisk = www.killdisk.com/downloadfree.htm [free]
As an addition or alternative to the above, try this to find what it can see of your HDD and its partitions [it displays the primary Master HDD and its partitioning rather well].
It will also zero fill the whole drive or individual partitions [and does more beside like displaying the 0's and 1's on the clusters].