[riponfrosh]

it's a closed network. I was able to connect to it using puppy linux, just used a static IP.
Either way, i went and purchased a 1TB hard drive, so i'll try to transfer everything and see if my xp disk still works...
thanks again!

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Once everything is backed up then you can move on to the Repair Installation
If that doesn't help then a Parallel Installation will be the last chance other then a format and fresh install.

[rshaffer61]

Once everything is backed up then you can move on to the Repair Installation
If that doesn't help then a Parallel Installation will be the last chance other then a format and fresh install.

[riponfrosh]

ok, well i picked up an external and was able to get pretty much everything of any importance off of the hard drive, so i decided to do a clean install.
the boot disk essentially said i need to reformat the hard drive, so i did(deleting everything on the drive) however, now it says something about it not being able to reformat the drive.

so, i tried to use an fdisk download i found, however it doesn't seem to do squat. Where can i find a usable download of fdisk.... will fdisk even work? 250gb ide... Any other suggestions to reformat this [bleep] thing.... i swear, nothing has gone right, but at least i was able to get all my crap off of the hd...

Thanks again!!

[rshaffer61]

Laptop correct?
What Make is the laptop?
Do you have a recovery disk?
If not then the recovery may be on a separate partition on the drive.

[riponfrosh]

it's a dell latitude d610.
No, i don't have a recovery disk,
I'm just trying to put a clean install of xp on it. Not worried about recovery. Just want to format the hard drive so i can install xp as xp seems unable to do it. This is why i'm trying to use fdisk so i can reformat it...

[rshaffer61]

Try changing the boot sequence in the bios so that it boots to the cdrom first?
Did you get a message about push any key to boot to cdrom?
Try this tutorial and let me know if this helps. Click on the XP incon for your instructions.
You can go to HERE to read the tutorial by one of the members here on how to do a Fresh Install or Repair Installation of you OS.

Edited by rshaffer61, 12 January 2010 - 08:14 AM.

[riponfrosh]

i got xp to run just fine, it runs through though setup thing at the beginning and then you have to select which partition you want to use. I selected the one previously on there and it said that you don't want to run a parallel OS on it, so it suggested deleting the data currently on it.
so i did.
then i selected the empty (raw) partition i just cleared and it said something about it not being able to to do it, sorry, don't remember exact phrase.
After some research online, this isn't that uncommon, so people use other means of formating the hard drive to prepare it for xp. That's where fdisk comes in.
I just need to know where i can find a download of it.

[rshaffer61]

You do realize fdisk usually will only do Fat16 and Fat 32 formatting?
XP uses NTFS

Edited by rshaffer61, 12 January 2010 - 10:02 AM.

[riponfrosh]

no, i didn't.
So what do you suggest?
How do I reformat it then?

[rshaffer61]

OK when you use the XP cd did you format the existing partition or did you delete the partition?
If the latter then you will need to repartition the drive and then format it.
Let me see if this will help you.
You can go to HERE to read the tutorial by one of the members here on how to do a Fresh Install or Repair Installation of you OS.

[riponfrosh]

The xp disk won't partition the drive.

It always says

"Setup was unable to format the partition. The disk may be damaged."

Apparently this is a pretty common occurence, and it just requires you to use something other than the xp disk to format a partition for you.
Essentially i need something that will partition this for me, other than the xp disk.

[rshaffer61]

You can try
Gparted
UBCD

Both are Linux Live Cd's and should be able to setup the partition as long as the hard drive is functional.