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| Thread ID: 59584 | 2005-07-06 11:48:00 | Computer Keeps Restarting - Can't Format - Dead Hard drive? | GarryM (8483) | Press F1 |
| Post ID | Timestamp | Content | User | ||
| 369982 | 2005-07-06 11:48:00 | Hi, my old compaq armada m300 won't start up, it gets to the windows loading screen then it makes a few clicking noises then restarts again... I tried a chkdsk and it got to 25% and stayed there for a hour before I turned it off. I have just been trying to reinstall xp and windows said something about unrecognisable disk, so I tried reformatting it first but it has been on 6% of the formatting screen for about half an hour now, I can hear the hard drive churning over and a clicking noise. Now can this be any other problem besides a dead hard drive? I don't want to go out and get a new one only to find it is a more serious problem. Cheers. | GarryM (8483) | ||
| 369983 | 2005-07-06 11:53:00 | Hi, hope this helps....mine did the same....and as you asked, my hard drive was dead... | Beckley (8482) | ||
| 369984 | 2005-07-06 12:05:00 | I take it that the hard drive is recognised in the BIOS? I suspect that the chkdsk you did was in safe mode" You hard drive can not be formatted if you boot from a CD of WinXP whatever version? You might like to try booting off the WinXP CD and delete all partitions from the hard drive. Then create a new partition and format that. It is likely that you may have a hidden partition on the drive and that partition may hold recovery data. Be careful but I suspect you do not need any data of the hard drive and you also hopefully have a full copy of WinXP. |
Elephant (599) | ||
| 369985 | 2005-07-06 12:10:00 | Hi, hope this helps....mine did the same....and as you asked, my hard drive was dead... Three or four months ago I had a similar problem formatting a hard drive. Eventually it happend and I was able to format it. You are probably correct though. I also think the hard drive may have died but I can't say for sure. |
Elephant (599) | ||
| 369986 | 2005-07-06 12:35:00 | Thanks guys. "I take it that the hard drive is recognised in the BIOS" no it isn't, well it dosn't show up anywhere. "I suspect that the chkdsk you did was in safe mode" I am not sure, I did it though recovery in xp disk. The thing is that the operating system that is installed is xp pro but the guy I brought it off (ebay) never sent a xp pro cd. I have a legal spare XP home cd and registration number that I am trying to use. I will try and delete all partitions and create a new one. And no, there is nothing important on the drive. |
GarryM (8483) | ||
| 369987 | 2005-07-06 12:57:00 | Must be dead, deleted partition, made a new one but got "Setup was unable to format the partition. The disk may be damaged".... | GarryM (8483) | ||
| 369988 | 2005-07-06 21:13:00 | Must be dead, deleted partition, made a new one but got "Setup was unable to format the partition. The disk may be damaged".... The clicking noise was a clue. |
pctek (84) | ||
| 369989 | 2005-07-07 12:15:00 | Hi there! I had a case with dead HDD and did not want to beleive it, though motherboard is the culprit. Went to Computer flee market in Panmure on saturday and got HDD with 2 Gig for $5 and all worked. Then bought a new HDD with 40Gigs and it is ok now. I keep the old HDD just for such ocasion now. Taly |
taly (5956) | ||
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