Hello all. I am running Windows XP SP2. I got a new Seagate HDD 160GB and was doing a fresh install of XP. Everything was going well during formatting the new hard drive but at around 6% my power went out!!!

Now I tried to do the fresh XP install again, but when it tried to format again, there was an error stating hard disk may be damaged!!!

So my question if any are willing to offer suggestions, is the HDD shot or can it be repaired? It sucks that this happened to a brand new HDD. What actually does a partial format do to the sectors? Is this a physical damage?

Thanks all,
Romeo.

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All 4 Replies

delete all partitions, recreate them and try formatting again

Thanks for the reply. Actually this is what I tried Using the Windows XP disc. After deleting the partitions and creating a new one, when I tried to format again, it stated "Can't format, hard drive may be damaged"

I tried some third party boot and format software such as Darik's and KillDisk but on boot up they only recognize my 3.5" Floppy Drive and want to format that??!!


Any suggestions??

Thanks again.

if you don't have surge protector between devices and power outlets, you may have to call Seagate and hopefully get a new drive from them under manufacturers warranty.

You could try putting the HDD in a different box, it would have to be a *nix I guess, DOS won't even see the thing.

I go along here with jbennet, change the partitions, put in 3 or 4 of them then try formatting them individually, in something different to NTFS, say ReiserFS.

If the above doesn't work, then you can safely say the power-out had a surge which fried the Seagate -- tho' I thought even Seagates had some resistance to that.

Gordon.

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