Hard Disk Problem Wanna Format my hard disk

[iGuest 3]

Hello my dear friends.I have Maxtor-Diamond Max20 (80GB)Hard Disk.I have try to Install Windows XP and i let it to Format during the Windows Installation.But it was taken long time(6 hours)for formatting 3%.Hence i have cancel the installation and try to format it using another machine.In this case this hard disk is not showing in the "My computer" but when booting it is detected and also it is showing at Bios setup menu.I need to format this hard disk's 'C' Partition and other 2 partition having valuable data. Can u help me about this problem.Thank you.

[The Simpleton 2]

It is taking six hours to get formatted? That's really unusual. First of all take a backup of all your important data on another hard disk or on a flash drive. Then try to delete that partition entirely, not just format it. This may be a little unconventional but it always works fast.

[shadowx 0]

Or try downloading a linux live CD, google "Ubuntu" download the ISO file, burn it to a CD and boot with that in the CD drive of the computer. Chose "Try ubuntu without making changes" and when it is booted click at the top System > Administration > Disk utilityClick the first disk in the list on the left, probably "80gb hard disk" or similar. then in the middle there should be "Format" click that. I havent gone any further than that on my machine since it's a working machine but i would guess it will ask you what to format or partition. If so you will likely see a bar with coloured boxes. Click the first of those partitions then click Delete, if there is a delete option. If not click Format. IF there is a delete option then delete all the partitions. Once the box is empty click it and there should be a "new" or "new partition" option. IF so click that and it will ask for a type. Choose NTFS (which probably wont be there) or FAT32. Set the maximum size and click OK or whatever button is there.Hopefully that will create one large partition that is empty and that windows can see. Now reboot, put the XP disk in and hopefully it will format nicely.NOTE: This WILL DELETE everything and might screw the disk. I personally would feel safe doing this and it is 99.9% safe but i accept no liability!

[Idiomus 0]

Look out for bad sectors

[rpgsearcherz 5]

Look out for bad sectors

This.

I had a Hitachi Deskstar go out on me at one point and I found out it was filling up with bad sectors (not even a lot, but it seems as if they are cancerous or something and end up spreading). I ran some bootup CD (I think it was called Hiren's Boot CD or something like that?) and it had quite a few utilities for repairing HDD's. It didn't work on mine so well as I had already beat the drive half to death and had put it in the freezer but it may be something to look into.

[peytton 0]

It is my belief that the harddisk might have bad sectors in the first few cylinder.

[reelkill 0]

I would definitely back up all the files, then begin your adventure. I just installed Windows on a old 90's Western Digital 40gig and then it stopped booting because, I had the jumpers set to slave, the firmware in the hard drive was sending wrong info to bios because of my mistake. Even though I had the jumpers set to slave it sill allowed me to install windows, it just had trouble booting and it did boot up after installation was completed;like 8 or 9 times. Then bios starting reading the hard drive as a cd-rom and quit booting tried booting it like 15 times still nothing. I thought maybe the drive was shot because of clunking sounds it made when I would shut it down. But it was just the jumpers and whats strange is that it seems like the firmware was giving conditionals or something.As for yours installing windows but not showing up anywhere as a third partition maybe it has something to do with the File System you are using. Are the other two partitions showing up? maybe it never finished creating the third partition or maybe you need to set your jumpers to slave.