New hard drive won't format

[justadumbblonde]

Here goes with my problem. I have an older system that I have just installed a brand new HD on. I have run fdisk but there are NO partitions. I eventually get to this message:

"If you have HPFS or NTFS installed on HD you need to create an MS-DOS boot partition to set up windows".

I am using a regular CD boot up disk and the windows CD, and have done this before with no problem, but guess the blonde is heavier now cause I can't seem to figure out what to do next. Any suggestions. And PLEASE use the KISS system..

You know Keep It Simple Stupid!. Thanks for your help. I tried fdisk /mbr but it just says there are no fixed disk present.

[maface]

welcome to techimo


I would try the command fdisk /MBR see if that helps, it will fdisk the master boot record. If not you could download software from the HD maker ie. Western digital has data lifeguard software that will prepare the drive for you.

[csa1234]

one of the reason is happening this is:

1) Your HD is 10GB or bigger and your motherboard is too old to accepts HD over 10GB

If this is the reason you should upgrade your motherboard.....if not i suggest you do this:

1) Download Partition Magic 7.0 and create the Partition Magic Boot disk (only 2 floppy disk)
2) And format your HD using the Partition Magic boot disk

PS: If you need the partition magic boot disk, let me know i can send you via e-mail both or you can download the whole sotfware (about 30 MB)

[Martoch]

Quote:

Originally posted by justadumbblonde
I am using a regular CD boot up disk and the windows CD,

Welcome to TechIMO!!!


So, how you doin'? Mind if I buy you a drink?
*cough*

Ahem, back to business...


Which Windows CD are you using? I'm assuming 98 if you're using a bootup floppy, right?

If so, try this:

Partition the Hard Drive(s) with FDISK
A:\>FDISK

Answer 'Y' for large disk support (this tells FDISK to create FAT32 partitions).
Select option 1: 'Create DOS partition or logical DOS drive
Select option 1: 'Create Primary DOS partition'
(Unless requested by the customer, we setup hard drives < 8.1GB as one partition).

If you have other hard drives in the system with data you want to retain, don't run FDISK on them!
Re-boot

Press ESCape to exit FDISK and re-boot the PC (again w/ CD-ROM support!).
Format the Hard Drive(s)

This time the RAM drive should move to the next available drive letter (D: if you created one partition). If you are not sure if FDISK was able to partition the whole hard drive, run FDISK again and use option 4 to view partition information.

A:\>D:\FORMAT C: /S

FORMAT will show the size of the formatted drive, which will always be smaller than the size FDISK reported. The '/S' option will make the hard drive bootable.

Other partitions on the primary hard drive can be formatted now also. Don't format any other drives in the system that contain data you want to retain!

Hint #1: FORMAT.COM can also be found on the Windows 98 CD in the \WIN98 directory.

Hint #2: on some systems with more than 256MB of memory, the /S option of FORMAT.COM may not work. If this is the case, run FORMAT without the /S option, then use the SYS.COM command to transfer the System Files to the hard drive and make it bootable:

A:\>E:\WIN98\FORMAT C:
A:\>SYS C:

[Undeadlord]

Dangit Martoch .. its not fair why do you always get to take the cute geek girls out for a drink NOT FAIR

Welcome to TechIMO

Undeadlord

[justadumbblonde]

Ohhhhhhhhhh you guys are just tooo cute. I tried what you said martock, but alas it didn't work either. So let me ask this is it possible that my compression driver is too old causing this problem? Not that I would know how to fix that thing either. And I have both 95 and 95 disks & cds. Oh yeah and it is a 10 gig HD, but I got the same messages with the 2 and 4 also.

[sKiT]

maybe a really old motherboard and you may need to contact the vender of it and see about a BIOS update. Its cheaper than buying a new motherboard if its available.

[dunbar]

Jumpers???????????

[nukes]

I never saw any jumpers that fixed the LBA issue.
You say you have compression on the drive?
what sort?
So you mean it wasn't blank to start with, or was it?
Oh and welcome to TechIMO.
[edit]

Quote:

fdisk says no fixed disks present

Have you set the disk up in the BIOS, just press the auto detect option, some will have this on the main screen, others it is slightly more hidden. Just saw that bit of your post and wondered.
How old is the motherboard?

[Imperion1]

In fdisk, did you remember to set an active partition?