Hard Drive Format? Problem

I've got a strange one that I've been working on. The drive had/has Vista 32 bit on it and I can format the drive with my Windows 7 system (it's a drive 3 that I have installed on this system). The status as shown by the screen shot is "healthy active partition".

The first thing I did was run repair but it reported it was unable to repair the install.

I've reformatted the drive - full format, not quick, booted from the Acronis boot CD, reinstalled an Acronis True Image full hard drive backup to the drive (a couple of times). But, it still will not boot, Windows starts to load then it blue screens but the blue screen and info are only there for a brief second and not enough to see the error. I even tried reinstalling Vista, reformat the hard drive and install and it still fails the same way.

I can access the drive from the Windows Explorer and the proper disc contents are displayed. I've run error checking and it doesn't find anything.

I thought it had something to do with the bootmgr (and may still do) but reformatting, reinstalling, etc should have corrected that.

I hate to say the hard drive is bad since no errors show up and it formats properly.

????

Are you disconnecting the other drives before you install to this drive?

I've tried it both ways, with the others disconnected (when I ran repair and when I tried an install) and with other drives connected when I ran the Acronis restore. I needed one of the other hard drives connected as the backup was located on it and Acronis allows selecting which drive to restore. I've done a restore on the Win 7 drive about a year ago and had the others connected and there wasn't a problem.

What has me up the tree is that the drive status is correct and I can access all the files on the drive. It just will not boot up - just a short attempt to start and then aborts with a blue screen that just momentarily flashes so I can't get any status codes or what it detects as the problem. Safe Mode is the same way.

Which version of ATI are you using? When you restored the image, did you also restore the mbr?

I'm using Acronis 2011. Yes I checked the box to also restore the mbr.

If it is your Seagate drive you have listed in your specs, It may be a good idea to download Seatools, Seagates diagnostic program. At least you would know if the problem is the hard drive or something else.

I've run that and nothing shows up. I just about ready to get a DOS version of f disk and run that.

The only suggestion I can make is to run startup repair. If you reinstall, make sure you disconnect all other hds except the one you are installing to. It seems to be missing the MBR, just my opinion.

Repair will not run. I noted that in my original post. I disconnected the other drives, booted with the Vista install disc and selected Repair. It reported it could not repair the installation. I then booted with the Vista disc, reformatted the hard drive and then installed. It went through the install and got to the point of rebooting and when rebooted it went back to the same, start to load and then go to Blue screen. Same way with a restore from an Acronis full hard drive backup.

This was the original problem, I tried to boot Vista and it started to load and got the blue screen. That's when I started to try the other procedures, starting with the repair.

It's not a hardware problem with the PC as I'm using this right now with Windows 7, on one of the other hard drives that are connected to the PC.

It appears to me it is a faulty HD. If you can RMA it or return it I think I would. The only other suggestion I can come up with is checkdisk. Good Luck with whatever you decide.

Try a complete wipe of the HDD with it being the only one connected followed by a clean install.


SSD / HDD : Optimize for Windows Reinstallation

checkdsk has been run. I'm doing another full hard drive format again. Going to give it one more shot and dump the hard drive if it doesn't work. It's over 5 years old so it's out of warranty. I ran surface tests with a diagnostic program and it passed the test.

Considering it's a 500 GB drive and the price of drives, today, there is no reason to continue fighting it.

Bare Foot Kid said:

Try a complete wipe of the HDD with it being the only one connected followed by a clean install.


SSD / HDD : Optimize for Windows Reinstallation

Click to expand...

Did you try the secure erase?

I'll try this with the hard drive moved to my "test" PC. I've ordered a replacement drive from newegg (a 1.5TB for $59 - one of todays specials). I'm going to switch drives around in my system and use the 750GB that is now used mostly for Acronis backups to Vista and the new drive will take it's place.

Jack