[revenge100]

Hi there,

Due to registration problems i tried to reinstall XP pro on my PC and it crashed half way through. now when i try to reinstall it again it can not locate the hard drive.

I have put a tempoary secondary hard drive and the PC runs OK ( after installing XP to that drive) and picks up the old hard drive.

Obviouslly this is not ideal since it is a lot smaller drive and it will mean transfering the old programs over (e.g Microsoft office) since they are refusing to work from the old drive.

Have you any suggestions?

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Most of the hard drive makers have semi-lowlevel formatting tools you can download and run from a floppy or a cd. Western digital is the data lifeguard tools, Seagate has the Seatools, Maxtor has the maxblast software. What i use here is the tool that writes all "0"s to a drive so everything is cleared off the drive. After that you should be able to use a XP cd and fdisk and format the drive so you can install windows. This has worked for me a couple of times when the XP cd just would not see the drive. Usually every time i have bought a new HD i have been getting a CD with these tools on it. They do come in handy once in a while.

SRX660

[SRX660]

Most of the hard drive makers have semi-lowlevel formatting tools you can download and run from a floppy or a cd. Western digital is the data lifeguard tools, Seagate has the Seatools, Maxtor has the maxblast software. What i use here is the tool that writes all "0"s to a drive so everything is cleared off the drive. After that you should be able to use a XP cd and fdisk and format the drive so you can install windows. This has worked for me a couple of times when the XP cd just would not see the drive. Usually every time i have bought a new HD i have been getting a CD with these tools on it. They do come in handy once in a while.

SRX660

[revenge100]

Cheers SRX660, will i be able retain any of the information on the problematic drive or do i have to just transfer as much as i can be formatting ?

Edited by revenge100, 16 August 2006 - 07:48 AM.

[revenge100]

OOD

Edited by revenge100, 17 August 2006 - 03:58 PM.

[revenge100]

Hi there,

I have formatted my hard drive but get the message NTLDR missing, can anuone advise me on the next stop please

[gavsou]

hey, if it says ntrld missing you need to insall xp or check your hard drive cables.

[wannabe1]

Hi revenge100...

Was it the "problematic" drive that you formatted? Have you reinstalled the operating system?

(I hope your moved your data to another drive before you formatted)

wannabe1

[revenge100]

hi there,

yep it was the same problamatic hard drive i was working on previouslly (seagate barracuda SATA ultra model ST32 00822AS) and yep i backed the records i neeeded. 1

I have tried to run the SATA drive disk i was given but this does not seem to be recognised

is this what you mean or is there an alternative operating system?

When i tried to install windows it gave me the same drive not found message again

Any thoughts