Bama and graeme have good points. I would check the manufacturer's website for low-level utilities that may fix errors on your drive that higher-level utilitues may not be able to fix. I just re-juvenated a 1gig WD Caviar--it had FAT errors, and their "mandatory-to-run utility before obtaining an RMA" remapped any bad blocks. The unit is error-free now according to the utility, dlgdiag.exe. However, as has been mentioned, a drive that starts to have errors may be headed for trouble. Try fixing what you have first, but be prepared to part with it if it is indeed a bad unit. Either case old or new drive, backup, backup, backup. :)

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I think all of you giving advice is the blind following the blind, no offence intended but none of you seems to know what they are talking about. Kevin, If you have NT installed on a seperate HDD all hope may not be lost. You can go to www.diskeeper.com and downlaod their data recovery software. If there is any life left in the disk, that software will be able to save your files. Your disk isn't dead and shouldn't be thrown away, copy the text below the line and using notepad or some similar text editor, save it as "killhdd.bat" It will delete all partitions on your first physical Hard Drive. It can easilly be configure to erase the second, third, etc. Hard drives instead. It uses debug and after it is run, nothing will be left (no FAT problems, no data problems a completely blank disk) FDISK /MBR is usefull only if you are using a disk with data still on it that you want to recover. Not one you want empty. Copy the killhdd.bat file to a dos boot disk with debug on it. To create a boot disk from your setup disks, go into the bios and set your computer not to recogonize any hdd's. When you then boot up to your setup disks it will give you the option of installing to a floppy disk instead. The two benefits of making a true boot disk is the lack of an install program you would have to abort each time you boot, and many more utilities that aren't available directly from the setup disk. That's it. Hope I helped all of you out. -------------------------------------------- @ECHO OFF IF NOT EXIST %0 GOTO ERROR DEBUG <%0 ECHO SUCCESS! GOTO EXIT A 100 INT 13 RAX 0301 RBX 0200 F 200 L 200 0 RCX 0001 RDX 0080 P Q ;REPLACE 0080 WITH 0081 IF YOU ;WANT TO CLEAR THE SECOND PHYSICAL ;HDD, 0082 FOR THE THIRD HDD,ETC. :ERROR ECHO YOU MUST TYPE THE FULL FILE NAME (KILLHDD.BAT) TO EXECUTE. :EXIT

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No offense taken, but you want someone that posts on a forum to run a debug script? Man, your debug script is nothing but a low-level format procedure. My god, for even $100 you can buy a 5 to 7GIG hard drive (at retail). Some of you people are so concerned with being "absolutely" right, that you don't take the average person into consideration. I hope this isn't taken wrong, but if you don't have $100 for spare computer parts, you don't need to have a computer. That's just how things are. So Kevin, are all these debug/dos/low level format/fdisk commands confusing you yet? Save yourself the trouble, and visit http://www.pricewatch.com and buy a new hard drive. You really shouldn't be running debug scripts nor should you be running low-level formats, unless you are very familiar (and I stress VERY familiar) with these things. Good luck Kevin.

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Ryan, to say that people here don't know what they are talking about, is at best misinformed. Many people you answer here are well paid professionals who for the sheer fact remember what it was like when they were starting out, don't mind giving a helping hand. And if you don't know why you should rebuild the master boot record instead of just formatting you probably need help yourself Cheers

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Hi, I enjoyed the discussion. Kevin does not appear to mind the lost data, having already tried to reinstall the NT. I think Kevin should buy a new hard disk. As the time he has spent on it is outweighed buy the cost of a new disk. If he does not know how to get to a dos prompt from dos installation disks, telling him to low level format may be beyond his experience. If not try, a low level format using the hard disk manufacturers utility, usually available on the web, and then resinstall the NT. If this fails the disk is faulty and should be replaced. Bye,

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Seems most people want you to buy a new drive Kev.....But if you are someone who is 14 to 16 you would rather spend the money on something else...as would I. I remember fault finding and old 386 mainboard cause I didn't have the folding for a new one. If you however do work in the IT like I have for the last 12 years, yes go ahead and buy a drive...as time = money...however this still won't buy you experience, which is never a bad thing. Cheers

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OK, THIS IS A GOOD ONE,,, I'm an IT professional myself, and there are alot of good and bad things happening here. Kev, the easy way out is a new drive. That is not how I would go about it. Follow the FDISK /MBR then remove the existing partitions with FDISK, then create any new partitions you need, reformat the drive and then try re-installing NT. The one value you will receive from this is EXPERIENCE as stated above and that you can't buy for $100 cheers

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