My SPOO has too much FLEEM

[Hungrycookpot]

not really, i actually have a problem with my HD on my moms dell. We bought this computer about 3 years ago, and just lately we had a serious problem, the computer would not boot, so i reinstalled windows, and of course this screwed it up really badly, we couldnt access any of the programs we had on before. So i delete the hard drive (its all backed up), and when i go to reformat it, it will get all the way to 100%, and i will get a message that this partition could not be formatted, the drive may be damaged. crap. So, after a while i go out and get another HD (btw, the first HD was a Seagate 20gig, the repacement a WD 40gb), and i just put it in tonight, got it all hooked up and when i try to format it, THE SAME DARN THING HAPPENS!!! it tells me the drive may be damaged! now, this is a used part from my buddy, so it could well also be damaged, but he said it works, he had just cleaned it all up and everything, and it should work fine. anyone have any ideas whats going on?

[fpantovich]

sounds like the IDE controller on your motherboard or your IDE cable attaching your hard drive to your motherboard is bad...try switching out IDE cables with another one...if that still doesn't work, then try putting the hard drives onto the secondary IDE port on your motherboard and then try to format it...if it still doesn't work, then go out and buy a new ATA133 PCI Controller Card and put it in your PCI slot then attach the hard drives to that and you should be good to go...good luck...

[Hungrycookpot]

hmm i tried switching the HD over to the IDE cable that has the CD drive as its master, did it all right (set HD to slave) and tried to format it, same problem, says its damaged, its weird tho, the CD drive works fine? i guess ill try to find a controller card and try that, kinda POd that i have to spend MORE money on this peice, maybe ill try to return the hard drive, i guess its still under warranty

[sm8000]

Check for bent pins and try a different cable altogether. Bump for the Dilbert reference

[Hungrycookpot]

haha yeah i was wondering when someone would get that