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reformatting hd

J

jeffmoss26

2[H]4U
Joined
Aug 1, 2002
Messages
2,267
hoping you guys can help me on this one.
trying to rebuild my computer (been taking way too long)
found out that my original 40gig hd is no good, won't boot windows. My friend was able to some stuff off using Linux. Then I tried to put the drive in as a slave in a second computer and it worked, I could access the files. It stilll wouldn't boot Windows. So today I tried to put the XP cd in and boot from that, and do a fresh install. Well it wouldn't boot from a CD. I tried a couple cd drives and nothing. I'm venturing to guess that this drive is toast. Seeing as I can get a new 80gig for about 55 shipped on newegg, should I not even waste anymore time?
Thanks,
Jeff
 
If you can't get any cd's to boot it could be something with your cd drive. Download the ultimate boot disk and see if that boots. If so run the hard drive manufacturer diagnostic tool on your old hard drive to test if its bad or not.

Also just about any new hard drive out there will be faster then your old 40GB one and will give you significant speed boosts in just about everything. It's still one of the slowest pieces of the computer. I think the 80GB ones with 8MB cache are around $50 or less now. You can probably get a $200GB for less then $100.
 
Get a new one. 120 GB WD Caviar is 75 bucks. Just do it. The old one is borked. :eek:
 
Jeff,

Did you check in the BIOS to make sure that bootable CD was setup, and that it was the first device you booted from? If you have a hard disk, the BIOS will try to boot from it first as it is the default (int80) device to boot off of. Try re-ordering your boot sequence to try to boot off of CD first, then hard disk. This should allow you to use your WinXP CD.

-E
 
I checked (and re-checked) the BIOS settings, they were set to boot from CD. It did show 'press any key to boot from cd' and when I pressed a key nothing happened.
But now I wonder if the CD is bad, I have it in this computer and nothing shows up in my computer (just says cd rom drive d: )
 
Now I'm even more confused. I had another Windows disk, tried to boot from it and got errors that files are missing. I threw the drive out because I know it was shot. So now I have to get a new hard drive and windows.
 
well i give up. i even reformatted a spare hd, and linspire which was on before still loaded. so i am done for today.
 
I had an idea: Could I take the known good hard drive from another computer and put it in this to see if it boots? That way I could see if the problem is with this computer. Would I risk doing any damage to my good hard drive?
 
jeffmoss26 said:
I had an idea: Could I take the known good hard drive from another computer and put it in this to see if it boots? That way I could see if the problem is with this computer. Would I risk doing any damage to my good hard drive?
Click to expand...

Sort of, not really. It kinda depends on what os is running on the other HDD. The thing is is that Windows is AMAZINGLY resilient to major hardware changes. What will happen is that it will take a very long time to boot (don't panick or cancel anything), because in the background it is recognizing and installing drivers for every new piece of hardware in the new system. As you can imagine, this is not something to be taken lightly, but in a pinch (or if lazy like myself), it can save you some time (over a clean install in my case). If it needs to go back into the other computer when it is done, I would think a bit before trying this.

 
Yeah, this hard drive is from a computer I currently use. So I would want to put the HD back in.
 
Remember, if you're referring to XP SP2, it will retain the SID from the old machine. Chances are, the machine will boot ok (as long as the hardware is relatively the same), but you probably will not be able to log in. It may let you log in, but it will log you right back out. I've experienced this many times with SP2.
 
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