Cannot Format Hard Disk

[ignatzatsonic]

SIW:

As near as we understand, the PC in question has no OS.

He has other computers with Vista and XP.

But we may have been misinformed.

 

[belikexp]

So my hard drive would show in up bios but wouldn't show up in the windows 7 disk selection screen even after loading the drivers numerous times. I tried to format it in my brothers working computer, it said it could not format the disk. I tried to install xp, it recognized the hard disk, but again I couldn't format. I tried to boot the GParted Live and delete/create some partitions, the disk doesn't even find my hard drive.

My question is:

Is this a semi-common problem or do I have a faulty hard drive?

My hard drive is in my specs.

What model is your motherboard?

GIGABYTE - Product - Motherboard - Products

 

[SIW2]

Hi Ig,

You could be right.

Nevertheless - if he attaches it to the Vista machine and initialises it there - then moves it back to 7 machine - that may do the trick. Vista/7 partitioning rules are the same.

If Vista doesn't like it either - it is probably faulty - I am surprised Gparted didn't pick it up.

 

[jradicle11]

so my hard drive would show in up bios but wouldn't show up in the windows 7 disk selection screen even after loading the drivers numerous times. I tried to format it in my brothers working computer, it said it could not format the disk. I tried to install xp, it recognized the hard disk, but again i couldn't format. I tried to boot the gparted live and delete/create some partitions, the disk doesn't even find my hard drive.

My question is:

Is this a semi-common problem or do i have a faulty hard drive?

My hard drive is in my specs.

what model is your motherboard?

gigabyte - product - motherboard - products

ga ma785gt-ud3h

 

[jradicle11]

SIW:

As near as we understand, the PC in question has no OS.

He has other computers with Vista and XP.

But we may have been misinformed.

Gateway laptop running Vista, would rather not take apart.

Custom built desktop running XP.

Custom built desktop that contains the hard drive I'm having trouble with.

It has only one hard drive. Nothing is on it, never been used before. I've called Gigabyte support and they told me the correct SATA ports to put my drives in so they would work in bios. By drives, I mean my optical drive and my hard drive, the only two I have connected.

Is there anything else that needs clearing up?

That sounded a bit hostile, I don't mean it to be.

 

[jradicle11]

Sorry for the third post, an update.

The disc is recognized in diskpart when I run command prompt during by pressing shift + F10 during the Windows 7 installation.

Disk ### Status Size Free Dyn Gpt
--------- ------- ----- ----- ---- ----
* Disk 0 Online 465GB 465GB

DISKPART> select disk 0

Disk 0 is now the selected disk.

DISKPART> create primary partition

Microsoft DiskPart version 6.1.7600

PARTITION - Create a partition.
VOLUME - Create a volume
VDISK - Creates a virtual disk file.

 

[ignatzatsonic]

OK, then continue with commands listed earlier in this thread.

Your disk will almost certainly be seen as disk 0 by diskpart.

If so, your commands would be the following, with the enter key after each one.

diskpart

list disk (most likely it will show as disk 0)

Select Disk 0 (if that is what shows in the above step)

clean

create primary partition

active

format fs=ntfs quick

exit

the above exit command should dump you back into the Windows 7 install. Just continue on from there or post why you can't.

 

[jradicle11]

Alright,

DISKPART> clean

DiskPart succeeded in cleaning the disk.

DISKPART> create primary partition

PARTITION - Create a partition.
VOLUME - Create a volume
VDISK - Creates a virtual disk file.

DISKPART> active

There is no partition selected.
Please select a partition and try again.

DISKPART> format fs=ntfs quick

There is no volume selected.
Please select a volume and try again.

 

[jradicle11]

"create primary partition" wasn't working so I tried "create partition primary" and it worked.

It took like 2 seconds to format, not sure if that's normal.

Going back to install.

 

[ignatzatsonic]

my error

you must insert this command


select partition 1

immediately after create partition primary

then continue with:

active

formatn fs ntfs=quick


the entire bunch is:

diskpart

list disk (most likely it will show as disk 0)

Select Disk 0 (if that is what shows in the above step)

clean

create partition primary

select partition 1

active

format fs=ntfs quick

exit

 

[jradicle11]

Well I never did select partition 1. Will that affect it?

This is the first time Windows 7 has recognized my hard drive in the "where to you want to install windows" screen.

When I select Disk 0 Partition 1 then next it says

"Setup was unable to create a new system partition or locate an existing system partition. See the Setup log files for more information."

When I select the drive and click format it says

"Windows cannot be installed to Disk 0 Partition 1. (Show Details)"

Details

"Windows cannot be installed to this disk. This computer's hardware may not support booting to this disk. Ensure that the disk's controller is enabled in the computer's BIOS menu."

 

[ignatzatsonic]

Just saw your response.

Looks like you got it sorted out.

Select partition 1 is not needed if you want only 1 partition.

As you discovered it is create partition primary rather than create primary partition.

You could have made several partitions in diskpart, but you can also make them in Windows itself if needed.

Get all of your Windows updates at the end of the install.

Get antivirus going. Windows Firewall is on by default.

You have 30 days to activate.

 

[jradicle11]

Sorry, I don't think you caught my edit.

This is the first time Windows 7 has recognized my hard drive in the "where to you want to install windows" screen.

When I select Disk 0 Partition 1 then next it says

"Setup was unable to create a new system partition or locate an existing system partition. See the Setup log files for more information."

When I select the drive and click format it says

"Windows cannot be installed to Disk 0 Partition 1. (Show Details)"

Details

"Windows cannot be installed to this disk. This computer's hardware may not support booting to this disk. Ensure that the disk's controller is enabled in the computer's BIOS menu."

 

[ignatzatsonic]

No, I didn't catch the edit.

I am running out of ideas

Try this:

go back to diskpart and do the same commands, but make this one addition:

just before the exit command, try the assign command

then the exit command.

I have never used assign myself, but you may need it to actually see a C partition. Just guessing.

I say this because I wouldn't expect to be able to choose "Disc 0, partition 1" as a location.

I would expect to see C.

Somewhat confused by why you would again try to format because you already formatted in diskpart when you did format fs=ntfs quick.

 

[jradicle11]

Well, I just tried to format because there were no other options since it wouldn't let me to install the disk.

I'm going through the same steps but trying a regular slowpoke format. Then what you mentioned.

 

[SIW2]

try this:

Diskpart

sel disk 0

detail disk

( let us know exactly what it says )

exi

 

[ignatzatsonic]

Edit:

go with what SIW 2 says for the time being.

Start again with diskpart:

diskpart

list disk

select disk 0

clean

create partition primary

select partition 1


active

format fs=ntfs quick

assign

exit


then continue with the install. Take a screenshot of the last step where everything looks cool.

Take another screenshot of the first step where everything is not cool and you get some sort of failure.

Post both screenshots in this thread.

Someone else may have to help you. It is possible you have unknown hardware issues.

 

[SIW2]

What does diskpart detail . jr?

 

[jradicle11]

Sorry, I'm waiting for the format to finish. I didn't do a quick one so it's taking a bit.

 

[jradicle11]

Disk ID : BFD8BAF7
Type : ATA
STATUS : Online
Path : 0
Target : 0
LUN ID : 0
Location Path : PCI ROOT(0)#PCI(1100)#ATA(C00T00L00)
Current Read-only State: No
Read-Only : No
Boot Disk : No
Pagefile Disk : No
Hibernation File Disk : No
Crashdump Disk : No
Clustered Disk : No

Volume ### Ltr Label Fs Type Size Status Info
------------ ---- ------ ---- ------ ----- -------- -----
* Volume 1 NTFS 465GB Healthy