Link to home
Start Free TrialLog in
Avatar of Ajak
Ajak

asked on

Hard Drive Refuses To Format

I have a Maxtor 8 GB HD which had been infected by a virus, which placed some symbols in the partition label. The symbols could not be removed, so the partition could not be deleted. I wiped the drive with Active Killdisk in A:, in the side-bar of the Killdisk analysis window it said "invalid master boot record", so I  used Testdisk to write a "classic MBR". I checked in Killdisk again & the "invalid master boot record" warning was gone. I then ran SpinRite Disk recovery on it, no errors showed up.

I tried to install WinXP Pro, it partitioned but would not Format the HD (the partition showed up as "Non DOS"). Using a DOS 6.22 Boot disk I created a Primary Active partition with Fdisk, taking up the whole drive. When I try to format the partition with the command: "format c:", I get the message "invalid drive specification". I checked in Fdisk & the info says "Non DOS Partition".

How can WinXP & Fdisk create a Non DOS Partition? what is the problem?
ASKER CERTIFIED SOLUTION
Avatar of _
_
Flag of Bahamas image

Link to home
membership
This solution is only available to members.
To access this solution, you must be a member of Experts Exchange.
Start Free Trial
SOLUTION
Link to home
membership
This solution is only available to members.
To access this solution, you must be a member of Experts Exchange.
Start Free Trial
Avatar of Machin__Shin
Machin__Shin

As a caution, unplug any other HDD's you have to avoid wiping them if you make a wrong setting in the drives part.
oh yeah and restart your computer before partitioning
SOLUTION
Avatar of Dave Lloyd
Dave Lloyd
Flag of Australia image

Link to home
membership
This solution is only available to members.
To access this solution, you must be a member of Experts Exchange.
Start Free Trial
SOLUTION
Link to home
membership
This solution is only available to members.
To access this solution, you must be a member of Experts Exchange.
Start Free Trial
Avatar of Ajak

ASKER

I ran PowerMax diagnostics on the drive & got the message:

"This drive is failing & must be replaced"

Game over.
Thank you much.    : )

>> Game over

Bummer.   : (