Bad harddrive or bad software?

[Jon]

I had to reinstall Windows XP because my laptop wouldn't
boot. Here is the short story.

First try through install, the main partition on my hard
drive was "undefined". Finally was able to delete and re-
format the partition with NTFS and successfully
reinstalled XP. Downloaded and started to install SP1a
and the whole thing crashed; partition again "undefined",
had to start over.

Second try turned out just like the first. (Forgot to
mention, the Recovery Console did not allow me to use
chkdsk, diskpart, bootcfg, etc. through either of the
first two intalles.)

Third try through install, used a different XP disk that
had SP1 on it (different computer that I purchased, I
know, probably not legal, but oh well). Installed
successfully. Installed antivirus software, then logged
onto website to update virus definitions. Crashed again.
This time, I was able to use chkdsk in the Recovery
Console. It says that there is one or more unrepairable
errors on the disk.

Any ideas what is goin on? Do I need to just re-format
and start over, or is my hard disk bad? If it's
bad/damaged, is there a way to isolate the bad sectors on
a hard drive and use the rest of it?

Any help is appreciated.

[Harry Ohrn]

It sounds like the hard drive is the problem.

--

Harry Ohrn MS-MVP [Shell\User]
www.webtree.ca/windowsxp


"Jon" > wrote in message
...
> I had to reinstall Windows XP because my laptop wouldn't
> boot. Here is the short story.
>
> First try through install, the main partition on my hard
> drive was "undefined". Finally was able to delete and re-
> format the partition with NTFS and successfully
> reinstalled XP. Downloaded and started to install SP1a
> and the whole thing crashed; partition again "undefined",
> had to start over.
>
> Second try turned out just like the first. (Forgot to
> mention, the Recovery Console did not allow me to use
> chkdsk, diskpart, bootcfg, etc. through either of the
> first two intalles.)
>
> Third try through install, used a different XP disk that
> had SP1 on it (different computer that I purchased, I
> know, probably not legal, but oh well). Installed
> successfully. Installed antivirus software, then logged
> onto website to update virus definitions. Crashed again.
> This time, I was able to use chkdsk in the Recovery
> Console. It says that there is one or more unrepairable
> errors on the disk.
>
> Any ideas what is goin on? Do I need to just re-format
> and start over, or is my hard disk bad? If it's
> bad/damaged, is there a way to isolate the bad sectors on
> a hard drive and use the rest of it?
>
> Any help is appreciated.

[D.Currie]

You could download hard drive diagnostics from the hard drive manufacturer's
website and run them and see what comes up. But it sounds like the drive has
some serious issues.

There are programs that will isolate the bad sections, but the problem is
that those sections tend to multiply, so isolating what's bad now doesn't
help much where more goes bad.

Of course, there are other uses for the drive. Laptop drives, being small,
make pretty good paperweights.

"Jon" > wrote in message
...
> I had to reinstall Windows XP because my laptop wouldn't
> boot. Here is the short story.
>
> First try through install, the main partition on my hard
> drive was "undefined". Finally was able to delete and re-
> format the partition with NTFS and successfully
> reinstalled XP. Downloaded and started to install SP1a
> and the whole thing crashed; partition again "undefined",
> had to start over.
>
> Second try turned out just like the first. (Forgot to
> mention, the Recovery Console did not allow me to use
> chkdsk, diskpart, bootcfg, etc. through either of the
> first two intalles.)
>
> Third try through install, used a different XP disk that
> had SP1 on it (different computer that I purchased, I
> know, probably not legal, but oh well). Installed
> successfully. Installed antivirus software, then logged
> onto website to update virus definitions. Crashed again.
> This time, I was able to use chkdsk in the Recovery
> Console. It says that there is one or more unrepairable
> errors on the disk.
>
> Any ideas what is goin on? Do I need to just re-format
> and start over, or is my hard disk bad? If it's
> bad/damaged, is there a way to isolate the bad sectors on
> a hard drive and use the rest of it?
>
> Any help is appreciated.

[Jon]

lol - that's what I'm using the laptop for!

thanks for the info.


>-----Original Message-----
>You could download hard drive diagnostics from the hard
drive manufacturer's
>website and run them and see what comes up. But it sounds
like the drive has
>some serious issues.
>
>There are programs that will isolate the bad sections,
but the problem is
>that those sections tend to multiply, so isolating what's
bad now doesn't
>help much where more goes bad.
>
>Of course, there are other uses for the drive. Laptop
drives, being small,
>make pretty good paperweights.
>
>"Jon" > wrote in message
...
>> I had to reinstall Windows XP because my laptop wouldn't
>> boot. Here is the short story.
>>
>> First try through install, the main partition on my hard
>> drive was "undefined". Finally was able to delete and
re-
>> format the partition with NTFS and successfully
>> reinstalled XP. Downloaded and started to install SP1a
>> and the whole thing crashed; partition
again "undefined",
>> had to start over.
>>
>> Second try turned out just like the first. (Forgot to
>> mention, the Recovery Console did not allow me to use
>> chkdsk, diskpart, bootcfg, etc. through either of the
>> first two intalles.)
>>
>> Third try through install, used a different XP disk that
>> had SP1 on it (different computer that I purchased, I
>> know, probably not legal, but oh well). Installed
>> successfully. Installed antivirus software, then logged
>> onto website to update virus definitions. Crashed
again.
>> This time, I was able to use chkdsk in the Recovery
>> Console. It says that there is one or more unrepairable
>> errors on the disk.
>>
>> Any ideas what is goin on? Do I need to just re-format
>> and start over, or is my hard disk bad? If it's
>> bad/damaged, is there a way to isolate the bad sectors
on
>> a hard drive and use the rest of it?
>>
>> Any help is appreciated.
>
>
>.
>