cannot format hdd

quickk · 07-19-2003, 02:06 AM

Hi,

İ just bougth a maxtor 80gb hdd. I'am running RH9 but i want to install winxp to my new hdd to make my system dual boot. The problem is that winxp install program cannot format my new hdd. By using fdisk I tried several different types such as fat32 and ntfs but when I tried installing winxp again it wont format. Any suggestions

lfur · 07-19-2003, 05:31 AM

Is there any specific error printed or it just wiil not format?

Mega Man X · 07-19-2003, 08:06 AM

Sounds pretty bad. If you got no errors as lfur suggested, I'd return the HD to the place you've purchased it

fancypiper · 07-19-2003, 08:17 AM

Try zeroing the drive out and see if 'doze can detect it then.

Boot into Linux and command as root

dd if=/dev/zero of=/dev/hdb

I am assuming it is the slave drive on the first ide chain, change as to your actual hook up.

Windows should recognize it as a blank, unformatted disk then.

Ranish Partition Manager

lfur · 07-19-2003, 05:49 PM

fancypiper

hehe, that's why we have that black hole in our systems ... to flush all the problems

geoff_f · 07-20-2003, 06:13 AM

There's probably nothing wrong with your hard drive, just that Windows XP won't cooperate with filesystems that are not NTFS, and even then it has difficulty with that if you're trying to re-install Win XP. Just zero the drive as fancypiper suggested, and you should have no trouble getting Win XP onto your hard disk. Just be sure to search this forum for installing Win XP and Linux together, so you'll be well-armed for the tricks that are needed.

Skyline · 07-20-2003, 03:33 PM

A couple of things to keep in mind when you come to dual boot XP and Red Hat 9 :

Install XP - 1st
Install Red Hat 9 - 2nd
If your going to dual boot them off the same hard drive then make sure you leave enough space after installing XP for Red Hat 9
Its a good idea to create 2 partitions from XP - a NTFS one for the main XP install and a separate FAT32 one for a shared data partition - the FAT32 partition can be read and written to by both OS's
Let Red Hat 9 install itself into the "existing free space" if your installing both on one drive.
Install either LILO or GRUB to the MBR

re-post if there are any problems on the way