Disk Part has encountered an error: the parameter is incorrect

[Montresor]

Hi, I recently acquired a new computer that's fairly old but I tried reinstalling windows on it with all of these errors regarding the hard drive being unable to be read with an error code. After several hours of trouble shooting I went to the Windows x32 bit command prompt tool on the disc, typed in "diskpart" and entered the following commands:

list disk

select disk 0

clean

create partition primary

select partition 1

format fs=ntfs (have also tried fs=ntfs quick)

In which the formatting process stops at 8 percent, waits for a while and then gives me the "Disk Part has encountered an error" message. I've tried using seagate, msdos from a flash drive to attempt diagnostics but none of them have been able to even read it. Does that me the HDD is totally destroyed? It's a SATA I do believe. Please ask for any information I've left out.

Specs:

Dell Dimension E520
4 GB Ram
Integrated Graphics (intel something or another)
Dual Core Processor (3.0 Ghz)

 

[essenbe]

If you are getting read errors on the hard drive, I would suspect the hard drive is bad, no matter what the other tools say. Change sata cables and make sure all connections are completely seated, on both ends of the cables. Run diskpart again and instead of the clean command use the clean all command. It will take several hours depending on the size of the drive, but may help identify and avoid the error sectors. But, whatever happens, do not trust the drive. Get another one ASAP.

 

[Dwarf]

Try substituting Clean All for Clean in your commands. This command does a more thorough job of wiping the disk, but it does take more time.

 

[norezen]

To those of you finding this..

So I found this forum post while having the same problem and was alarmed at the prospect of needing a new hard drive.

Don't worry- it may not be your hard drive.

I was able to try to install windows on my 2nd hard drive and it *also* failed - giving the same error message about parameter incorrect.

In my case the error was hard to find. My installer kept referring me to a log file that I couldn't figure out how to access. And then I had my stroke of genius.

After using diskpart to format my disk over and over I finally decided to format volume. You can list and select volumes the same as you do disks.

After formatting the volume I wanted to install windows to, I made sure it had the drive letter "c" assigned to it. After assigning the letter,when I tried to install to that volume, it game me an error code. 0x80300001

This code refers to installation media being the problem.

In my case, I am installing using a usb stick. A usb 3.0 stick in a usb 3.0 plug that requires drivers to work properly. Drivers that I couldn't install during setup.

After moving the stick to a usb 2.0 plug windows installed properly.

I am still perplexed as to how I was able to load the setup utility but not install windows using the 3.0 plug but since my windows is installed and working properly I decided to stop my investigation.