Formating Hd

[Marius24]

my mums pc got messed up (not much needs 2 b said) but now it is messed up i have to reinstall XP. however the pc does not detect the hard drive. i presume this is because i need to format it. how can i go around doing this? :)

[lynx]

Question. The pc does not detect the hd, or XP does not detect it?

How is it connected?

If it is standard IDE, then it has to be detected by the bios before you can go any further, if that's not happening then either your mobo or your HD is broken.

If it is not standard IDE, then you may need a driver to install at setup time, when the prompt comes up at the bottom of the screen.

After that, you can partition and reformat within XP setup.

[Marius24]

Originally posted by lynx@4 May 2004 - 17:55
Question. The pc does not detect the hd, or XP does not detect it?

How is it connected?

If it is standard IDE, then it has to be detected by the bios before you can go any further, if that's not happening then either your mobo or your HD is broken.

If it is not standard IDE, then you may need a driver to install at setup time, when the prompt comes up at the bottom of the screen.

After that, you can partition and reformat within XP setup.
i'm not too sure how it is connected. Its one of those buy premade and i cant open the fekin case. i go to install XP after i believe the same thing that happened to my pc was done to my mothers (she turned it of at the wall :rolleyes: ). The harddrive isn't detected by XP setup and it is enabled in bios with the CD and floppy drives too. I will try and take a picture of the pc screen when it comes up :)

edit
XP doesn't detect it, i believe it just needs a to be partition/formatted (could be wrong though) :)

[Marius24]

btw, i have no idea why it says from scatch :blink:

must just be me in a rush :lol:

[scottwile]

how new or old is the harddrive?
you may have to type numbers written on the drive into the bios if its an older model

[Marius24]

Originally posted by scottwile@4 May 2004 - 19:43
how new or old is the harddrive?
you may have to type numbers written on the drive into the bios if its an older model
about 4 years lol. i am unable 2 get into the case so i cannot check anything out :lol:

[Raven_1210]

Hey Marius24:

I work at a computer store if Your hard drive is not being detected in the windows xp install that means A, your hard drive is dead B, its not detected right. If your hard drive was acully detected in the bios then windows xp install well detect the hard drive and say there is no partation on it. so ether check the bios if its not there then the hard drive is dead. :frusty:

[kaiweiler]

Originally posted by Marius24@4 May 2004 - 16:00
about 4 years lol. i am unable 2 get into the case so i cannot check anything out :lol:
Why can't you just open your case??
If it's because of warrenty issues, then formatting will void your warrenty anyway, so go ahead and open it up :rolleyes:

[Marius24]

Originally posted by kaiweiler+4 May 2004 - 20:03--></div><table border='0' align='center' width='95%' cellpadding='3' cellspacing='1'><tr><td>QUOTE (kaiweiler @ 4 May 2004 - 20:03)</td></tr><tr><td id='QUOTE'> <!--QuoteBegin-Marius24@4 May 2004 - 16:00
about 4 years lol.&nbsp; i am unable 2 get into the case so i cannot check anything out :lol:
Why can&#39;t you just open your case??
If it&#39;s because of warrenty issues, then formatting will void your warrenty anyway, so go ahead and open it up :rolleyes: [/b][/quote]
believe me, i have tried&#33; at one point a had a screw driver trying to dig into the case :lol:

there will b a screw or switch thing somewhere :lol:

[Raven_1210]

Marius24 did u find out your problem

[Virtualbody1234]

Give us details. What motherboard, drive, etc. Is the drive detected in the BIOS?

It could be that you need drivers for a IDE controller on a diskette. Windows XP has a message at bootup to press a key to use those drivers.

[Raven_1210]

probully doesn&#39;t have those if its a 4 year old machine

[Virtualbody1234]

Originally posted by Raven_1210@4 May 2004 - 14:18
probully doesn&#39;t have those if its a 4 year old machine
Probably doesn&#39;t have what?

[Raven_1210]

4 ide channels because that f6 part is for sata drives or raid drives. or 4 ide channels all 2 channel ide controls can run on standard drivers

[Marius24]

im sure all i have to do is format or partition the drive, its what i had 2 do when i got my new drive (different PC) and it happened to this pc so i just used the recovery disk and it was fine. the other pc doesnt have recovery disks so is it not possible to do it manually? :unsure:

[kaiweiler]

Originally posted by Marius24@4 May 2004 - 16:46
im sure all i have to do is format or partition the drive, its what i had 2 do when i got my new drive (different PC) and it happened to this pc so i just used the recovery disk and it was fine. the other pc doesnt have recovery disks so is it not possible to do it manually? :unsure:
If your computer you want to format has a seperate recovery partition you may not want to format it anyway, as that partition often conatins all the necessary drivers for onboard sound, video, lan, etc....
a lot of prebuilt comps will have this and it is a pain to format them, you may want to try just removing the one main partition and creating a new primary dos partition and installing your OS on that clean, but keep the recovery partition if you can as it most likley has all your drivers you want to keep.

[lynx]

4 years old and it has XP on it???

Or is it simply that you are trying to install XP?

In any case, if XP doesn&#39;t detect your hd nothing else is likely to. You can do ALL the partitioning and formatting from within XP setup, but only if it can detect the disk. you don&#39;t need to format it first for that to happen.

Tell us what model the pc is, we may be able to tell you how to open it so you can investigate further, but I&#39;m pretty certain that you have a damaged component.

Edit: I&#39;m betting it is an HP, they are easy to get into if you know how, but an absolute swine if you don&#39;t.

[kaiweiler]

just run fdisk....

[lynx]

Originally posted by kaiweiler@4 May 2004 - 21:10
just run fdisk....
How can he run fdisk if it doesn&#39;t detect the drive?????????????????????????

[kaiweiler]

Originally posted by lynx+4 May 2004 - 17:17--></div><table border='0' align='center' width='95%' cellpadding='3' cellspacing='1'><tr><td>QUOTE (lynx @ 4 May 2004 - 17:17)</td></tr><tr><td id='QUOTE'> <!--QuoteBegin-kaiweiler@4 May 2004 - 21:10
just run fdisk....
How can he run fdisk if it doesn&#39;t detect the drive????????????????????????? [/b][/quote]
:lol: sorry my bad, I thought he had that figured out and was now just figuring out how to format it, my mistake lol

[Marius24]

Originally posted by lynx@4 May 2004 - 21:03
4 years old and it has XP on it???

Or is it simply that you are trying to install XP?

In any case, if XP doesn&#39;t detect your hd nothing else is likely to. You can do ALL the partitioning and formatting from within XP setup, but only if it can detect the disk. you don&#39;t need to format it first for that to happen.

Tell us what model the pc is, we may be able to tell you how to open it so you can investigate further, but I&#39;m pretty certain that you have a damaged component.

Edit: I&#39;m betting it is an HP, they are easy to get into if you know how, but an absolute swine if you don&#39;t.
it had windows ME on (sigh)

the pc is a TIME computer (uk company) http://www.timecomputers.com/

as for the model i will have to look into it

[Virtualbody1234]

Again, does the drive show up in the BIOS?

[freak]

Marius24 what are the specs on your pc? Just want to know cause i&#39;m not sure how well XP will run if its 4yrs old. also if you have a windows 98 or ME boot disc just slap that in and type format c: even though XP should do that it sometimes doesn&#39;t. if that doesn&#39;t work u will need a new hard drive

[Marius24]

Originally posted by Virtualbody1234@5 May 2004 - 00:50
Again, does the drive show up in the BIOS?
when the computer starts up the hard drive is auto detected, tonight when i get back from school i will check in the bois for it