How to format an inaccessible hard drive?

ginopalomo · 05-02-2008, 12:10 PM

Hi there,

I'm trying to rebuilt a computer at home but it seems to be a problem with the hard drive. This is the HP Pavilion 523n purchased in November 2002 here in the USA. Well, it's a nice computer but one day started to work very very very slow. I decided to use the 8 System Recovery CD's that an HP technician sent me. I want to keep this computer as it was when I opened its box. After the 8 CD's are properly loaded in the machine, the recovery process starts but it stops around 12% to let me know that thousands of files "cannot be open!" (yes, that's the error message I get every time I select the [OK] button when it appears). Nothing happens after that. I contacted a computer repair store here in town, and he said it sounds like the hard drive is damage. But he wants to charge me $45 for a diagnostic, $90 for a new hard drive and $125 for the labor. I simply cannot afford that.

However, I do keep the tower of a Dell in my garage and I thought I could do it myself. I opened the tower of the Dell computer, extracted its hard drive and replace the HP hard drive with this one that I know it works well. So, I insert again the 8 CD's from HP and start the same process. This time everything goes well and farther in this lengthy process... until then a new error appears that reads "cannot partiton hard drive!"

I have being reading all day about how to partition a hard drive before installing the System Recovery CD's, but now it's too late I guess. It seems like I should have run MS-DOS first and the FDISK command on this hard drive before I tried to install it on my HP computer. What can I do now? every time I tun on the computer it takes me back to the first step of the System Recovery process: insert disk 1. Is there a way to access the hard drive to format it now?

nagstaku · 05-02-2008, 01:50 PM

if you only have those restore cd's (and no windows XP install discs) your easiest bet to re-format and partition that HD would be to get a bootable cd or floppy with partitioning software. I use the ultimatebootCD . It's a bunch of freeware combined into one boot cd. Anyways, boot it up, choose a program that will partition/format the drive and let it rip.

worst comes to worse by a regular copy of XP from someone on craigslist or ebay for 70$ and just install it, cause it will partition/format/install everything from one disc. You will need to download drivers (at least network to get internet) somewhere else though and then install them onto the clean XP install afterwards.

05-02-2008, 12:10 PM	#1 (permalink)
ginopalomo Registered User Join Date: May 2008 Posts: 1 OS: Windows XP sp2	How to format an inaccessible hard drive? Hi there, I'm trying to rebuilt a computer at home but it seems to be a problem with the hard drive. This is the HP Pavilion 523n purchased in November 2002 here in the USA. Well, it's a nice computer but one day started to work very very very slow. I decided to use the 8 System Recovery CD's that an HP technician sent me. I want to keep this computer as it was when I opened its box. After the 8 CD's are properly loaded in the machine, the recovery process starts but it stops around 12% to let me know that thousands of files "cannot be open!" (yes, that's the error message I get every time I select the [OK] button when it appears). Nothing happens after that. I contacted a computer repair store here in town, and he said it sounds like the hard drive is damage. But he wants to charge me $45 for a diagnostic, $90 for a new hard drive and $125 for the labor. I simply cannot afford that. However, I do keep the tower of a Dell in my garage and I thought I could do it myself. I opened the tower of the Dell computer, extracted its hard drive and replace the HP hard drive with this one that I know it works well. So, I insert again the 8 CD's from HP and start the same process. This time everything goes well and farther in this lengthy process... until then a new error appears that reads "cannot partiton hard drive!" I have being reading all day about how to partition a hard drive before installing the System Recovery CD's, but now it's too late I guess. It seems like I should have run MS-DOS first and the FDISK command on this hard drive before I tried to install it on my HP computer. What can I do now? every time I tun on the computer it takes me back to the first step of the System Recovery process: insert disk 1. Is there a way to access the hard drive to format it now?

05-02-2008, 01:50 PM	#2 (permalink)
nagstaku Registered User Join Date: May 2008 Posts: 3 OS: many	Re: How to format an inaccessible hard drive? if you only have those restore cd's (and no windows XP install discs) your easiest bet to re-format and partition that HD would be to get a bootable cd or floppy with partitioning software. I use the ultimatebootCD . It's a bunch of freeware combined into one boot cd. Anyways, boot it up, choose a program that will partition/format the drive and let it rip. worst comes to worse by a regular copy of XP from someone on craigslist or ebay for 70$ and just install it, cause it will partition/format/install everything from one disc. You will need to download drivers (at least network to get internet) somewhere else though and then install them onto the clean XP install afterwards.