the problem is on an IBM thinkpad 380XD running windows 98. While downloading the hard drive made a sort of grinding noise then froze. I couldn't do anything. The only way I could shut the computer off was to unplug it mannualy. I'm guessing the hard drive crashed. When I turned it back on it went into scandisk. I let it sit and run while it would come accros errors every now and then and I would let it fix them. The hrd drive made a lot of noise when it came to a "Bad sector". It would sit there for ever making this noise then ask me if I wanted something fixed. I let this run for about 3 days to get through it. Now when I turn on my computer it makes it all the way to the Windows 98 start up screen where it encounters an error and runs scan disk again. This error tells me that windows cannot read from drive c:. I can get to a command prompt with a boot disk. It also will not let me reformat drive c: once I get into this command prompt. One last thing, when I let it run all the way through scan disk again it will bring me to a screen of a large diskette and an F1 prompt, I can't seem to figure out what to do here. Any advice would be great. Thanks

Hi, Shane, Sorry to say, your old hard drive has gone to the great big bit-bucket in the sky. I believe that F1 prompt will allow you to access the CMOS settings (by pressing the F1 key), but I haven't worked on a Thinkpad in more than a year, so don't quote me. Get a beer, drink a toast to the drive, and start saving your pennies for a new drive. HTH Tech Guy

I think I have to agree with Tech Guy here. If your desperate, as you seem to be, try running FDISK.exe from the boot disk. Tell it to delete Primary partition then try and make it again. This should delete the data on the drive the same as format would. It may work but its a real distant long shot. HTH, Davros.

A feeble attempt to recover some data would be to boot from a floppy and type: scandisk c: /surface It will check your drive and attempt to fix any bad sectors.

if you are to reformat your C: drive, you need to boot your computer through the 98 backup-disk (if you have it). Make sure that once you access the C: from there, to type format c:/s, that way you'll make your drive operatable, so you can start with a clean disk and install windows again. I had a similar problems, and I reformatted my hard drive. I don't have any problems now, but it's a pain to install all your programs again, create the partitions, etc. I can't tell you if your hard drive is completely fried or what, but if you don't care about saving data, give it a try. If it doesn't work, buy yourself a new one. Good luck!

Try what these guys said, and I agree with them, HD has gone bye, bye. BUT you can get around bad sectors. Here is a link that might help you in your journey, Click on "format" in the blue window...Good luck!! http://www.apcmaster.com/