VERY Strange reformatting problem...

G

gizZzmo333

New Member
I was formatting an older laptop just the other day (IBM Thinkpad, 512mb ram, 700-something Mhz processor, running windows xp professional).

I was going to reformat with XP Home not Pro...so I stuck in the Original XP CD, booted from CD...everything seemed gravy.

I chose to reformat the drive NTFS (not the 'quick' option) and away it went, it was at about 80% completed last I checked on it...

When i returned, there was this an error:

'Windows was unable to format the partition. The disk may be damaged. Make sure the drive is switched on and properly connected to your computer. If the disk is an SCSI disk, make sure your SCSI devices are properly terminated. Consult your computer manual or SCSI documentation for more information"


It then gave me the option to try the reformat on another partition. There was another (smaller) partition on the HD, so I tried to reformat that, but was told right away it was not able to (I forget the exact error msg given).

There was no other options available to me in the setup menu at that time, so I exited the setup menu..and Figured I would try again. I removed the CD, powered down the laptop, unplugged from power, removed battery, waited 10 mins and started over.

I powered the computer on in order to be able to re-insert the cd...and since HD was selected as the first option in the boot menu...it tried to boot from the HD first. I was given the message 'no operating system'... Ok. I figured this is because it was interrupted mid-reformat and was unable to successfully reload XP. I put in the CD, changed bios menu to boot from CD drive first...and restarted the computer.

Here's the part I really don't understand, after attempting to boot from CD...i was STILL given the message 'no operating system'. Its on the CD...how is this possible? How can I fix this and successfully format the laptop???

Any help is greatly appreciated. Thanks very much.
 
You should do a hard drive diagnostic test on the hard drive. It may have erros on the drive.
 
You should be able to boot from CD, regardless of what condition the HDD is in - Be absolutely sure that you are hitting ENTER when the message Boot From CD? appears - I've done this many times.

It sounds like either the HDD is bad or the disc you are using is bad. Try formatting with a freshly burned CD. If it still gives an error in the middle of formatting, you should probably replace the HDD. You could try repairing the HDD using the manufacturer's bootable HDD diagnostic utility (usually available on the manufacturer's website) or something like Ultimate Boot CD. But on that old of a laptop, chances are the HDD is on its way out permanently.

Also, why opt for XP Home when Professional is available?
 
Hi. Thanks very much for replies and suggestions so far. Because the computer is older, I would not put it past the suggestion that the HD has gone.

However, like deanj20 suggested...shouldn't I still be able to boot from CD regardless of harddrive failure...?

Also, would it have shown that there were bad sectors found during the formatting process? Because normally, scanning for bad sectors using the windows disc and recovery console lets you know if/how many bad sectors there are.....there were no such messages given.

Another thing to note...Yes I am 100% hitting 'enter' after selection boot from CD...but what seems a little strange is the CD drive doesn't even seem to be spinning. Normally its rather loud and you can hear when the computer is reading/writing to CD drive. After I select boot from CD...pretty much right away I'm getting that error msg 'no operating system'...without it really taking time to let the CD drive spin up before attempting to read off it. Just something i noticed.
 
deanj20 said:
You should be able to boot from CD, regardless of what condition the HDD is in - Be absolutely sure that you are hitting ENTER when the message Boot From CD? appears - I've done this many times.

It sounds like either the HDD is bad or the disc you are using is bad. Try formatting with a freshly burned CD. If it still gives an error in the middle of formatting, you should probably replace the HDD. You could try repairing the HDD using the manufacturer's bootable HDD diagnostic utility (usually available on the manufacturer's website) or something like Ultimate Boot CD. But on that old of a laptop, chances are the HDD is on its way out permanently.

Also, why opt for XP Home when Professional is available?
Click to expand...


It was a family member's old work computer...I Asked, but they don't have any install discs for it so I'm using my own XP CD on it.
 
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