Windows 7 will not format drive

[KSchrief]

Hey guys.

I installed Windows 7 Pro x64 on a new build last week.

It ran okay for a while, but started to freeze up. Anything that was in the RAM would load fine, but nothing new would load from the HDD.

I decided to install Windows 7 x32 on the machine to see if anything changed. It seemed to run normally, so I thought that maybe something went awry in the first installation.

I tried installing x64 again, but this time, when I went to format the drive, I got the following error:

"Windows cannot format your drive (0x80070057)"

I've tried this several times, deleted all partitions on the drive, and tried again. I get the same error each time. I'm beginning to think maybe the drive is faulty.

Any help would be much appreciated. Thank you!

 

[Bare Foot Kid]

Hello KSchrief, welcome to Seven Forums!





Here's an excellent oprion to do a wipe (secure erase) to the Hard Disk Drive for a start.

SSD / HDD : Optimize for Windows Reinstallation

 

[KSchrief]

When I give the command "Clean all" It blinks for a while then says the following:

"DiskPart has encountered an error: The request could not be performed because of an I/O Device error.
See the system event log for more information"

Does this mean my drive is somehow fried? I'll try re-connecting the SATA wire and try again, maybe that will help.

 

[whs]

This smells like dynamic or any other srewed-up partitions on the disk. I would try 2 options:

1. Format the disk with Command Prompt on your installation disk. The commands are:

Diskpart
List disk
Select disk n (where n is the number that was given for your SSD in List disk)
Create partition primary
Active
Exit

2. Use the bootable CD of this program to create an active, primary partition.

PS: Just saw your last post. A hardware problem is a possibility but I think it is unlikely (since the 32bit system worked).

 

[KSchrief]

Okay!

I'm farther than I am last time. It's at "Expanding Windows Files" On the 7 install at a rate at least 15-20 times faster than all previous attempts.

Thank you SO MUCH!! You've made my day! This is my first build and I'm still learning, so you really helped me out there. Thanks guys!

 

[Bare Foot Kid]

Glad we could and post back to keep us informed.

 

[KSchrief]

Okay. I've installed windows, but when it went to restart, it won't load from the HDD. I booted from the CD again, and the CD says everything's fine on the HDD, but when I go to load from it, I get a disk read error.

 

[gregrocker]

Run HD maker's diagnostics/repair full CD scan: HD Diagnostic
Hard Drive Diagnostics Tools and Utilities (Storage) - TACKtech Corp.

Followed by http://www.sevenforums.com/tutorials/433-disk-check.html - if necessary run from F8 Advanced Boot Tools "Repair My Computer" or Safe Mode Command Line, Win7 DVD or Repair CD command line. http://www.sevenforums.com/performance-maintenance/51100-repair-cd-system-repair-disk.html

Next boot into Repair CD to run Startup Repair up to 3 separate times with reboots to see if it can find the problem and repair it.

 

[KSchrief]

Installed again, and booted from HDD fine.

Stand by for when the next thing goes wrong. lol. But if nothing goes wrong, I thank you guys SOOOO MUUUUCCCCHHHHH!!!!

 

[Bare Foot Kid]

Good to see you got it running and thanks for the update.

 

[KSchrief]

If anyone wants to know:

It ran fine for a while, then BSoD'd, then wouldn't start. At that point it was 11 PM and I didn't wanna deal with it anymore, so I went to bed.

I've had a suspicion that the SATA cable was faulty, as the HDD seems to be having all these problems, yet everything else is flawless. I swapped the SATA cable with that of the DVD drive, and what do you know, everything's fine with the HDD, and now the DVD drive's iffy. So I'll be picking up a new SATA cable shortly.

Just figured I'd let you guys know.

 

[Bare Foot Kid]

Good to see you're getting it sorted and thanks for the update.

 

[bhardwaj]

@whs I am also facing same kind of problem but for me i am not able to create primary partition also.

I was having windows 7 ultimate 32 bit and everything was working fine , i thought of running chkdsk on the drive OS was install and made it to run at startup when i restarted the laptop it started showing Disk Failure and nothing was working

so i thought of installing fresh copy of Windows 7 Home Premium 64 bit. It's not letting me create partition from the Setup Wizard and giving error 0x80070057)" so i decided to partition it using command prompt ( this option came after clicking on Repair your system)

here also i tried doing clean all and gave IO error then i tried performing "Create partition primary " as mentioned in this forum and it also gave me io error
so any suggestion.

For me its showing 298GB but something is wrong

 

[gregrocker]

Why would you expect it to partition to install if your disk failed?

 

[Nedas]

Hello, I have the same problem.
Get this message after entering clean all:

"DiskPart has encountered an error: The request could not be performed because of an I/O Device error.
See the system event log for more information"

And after entering: Create partition primary, i get the same error. Any toughts?