ok...i have an IBM thinkpad 600 laptop...and i compressed my harddrive a few weeks ago..i soon caught a virus that basically erased my windows folder...i cant go 2 windows and i cant format because my harddrive is compressed...i dont think i can uncompress in DOS and my laptop has swappable drives which means i can only have either a floppy disk drive in or a CD-rom drive in the laptop at once...and a friend suggested low-level formatting...i would like a how to, or easy instructions on how to low level format or at least get my laptop back up so i can use it without getting a new harddrive...thanks in advance

When I have to do any work on the ThinkPad I service(760c) I put the adapter on it and throw it into the big machine. That might be an option for you. They are only about $8 or $9. Another option could be to disk the Disk Manager Utility program from the IBM website. That may do what you need it to.

Correction: To get the Disk Manager from the IBM website.

Can't you format from a floppy? It would wipe out your compressing but don't see why it wouldn't format. Then you can reload Windows. Unless your hard disk is very small, I would suggest staying away from compression of the disk. You can compress files using WinZip, LZH, etc. to save space. But Hard disks have gotten so cheap now (20Gb under $100). So why fight it? Be aware, though that with laptops there are less hardware options because of space constraints.

dm: I just priced a 20GB laptop hard drive the other day. Going price is: $179. Not a price I'm willing to pay right now. And a Thinkpad 600 is older than the one I work on. It won't support anything over an 8.4GB without overlay software, and IBM does not make overlay software. And a thinkpad is a proprietary pc. It can only accept IBM compatible hard drives. In other words, IBM or Travelstar. And IBM does not support a TravelstarE, which means External. I have researched exactly what Glenn is going through extensively. I think the only chance he has is with the IBM Disk manager utility, or Maxtors Powermax.exe program. It works on the IBM/Travelstar drives and it will do a low level format and write 0000 to the whole drive or just the first 128k of it. I will say this to Glenn: IBM laptop hard drives are the worst. They can be good one second and bad the next. I got one that would only be recognized as Primary Slave so it wouldn't even boot. I'm waiting for the next computer show to come to town so I can finish working on this one I have here. It wiped out 3 hard drive in a matter of minutes.

try here http://members.cox.net/suttons_solutions/ds_faq.html then if you can find a fix you should be able to delete the CVF and then format or just fdisk. a low level format can be done it's best to goto your hard drives website and get there utilities and make a floppy. Upgrading Links

Try getting hold of a segate disk manager cd that ships with the hard drive. Else use FDISK option with the mbr parameter check out htis site http://fdisk.radified.com/