Hi Everybody, Recently i uploaded Norton Antivirus 2004 on my computer which was previously having ZoneAlarm on which messed my hard drive cause i was running out of space. My computer hanged on me and i thought of reformatting the computer but it wont let me. So i removed the hard drive and connected it to my laptop using USB2.0 and formatted it. The current status of my hard drive is all 9.32 GB is free and unallocated. The partition style is MBR. Now when i connect this hard drive to my desktop and try and boot it with XP bootable floppies i get an error message saying "Disk I/O Error". Please Help. Thanks.

I've had that message before with win 95 and what i did was i sys it with a startup disk but one thing u could try is insaling windows over your hard drive.

Well just about none of that makes sense to me..... Is this a wind up lol ??

A question? You installed Norton Antivirus becasue you where having problems with Zone alarm? Now you have a good Anti virus programme but no firewall. Norton Antivirus and Zone Alarm do two completley differnet jobs. There is a little overlap between the two but for full protection you need both. You will get problems with reduced disk space, not only with Zone Alrm but any programme the needs to write data to the disk. The reason you are getting the Disk I/O aerror is because the disk was formatted on an alien computer. Try formatting on the computer it is to be used on and install Windows from the CD as suggested by Trog. With only 9.32 Gb I imagine it only had one partiton and you where trying to format that from within Windows in which case it won't let you. You are asking Windows to commit suicide and it doesnt want to. To format a partition containing Windows you are going to have to boot from a floppy or CD and them format it. Stuart

hi stuart i dont know how to format the disk on the computer cause now the disk is already formatted on a alien computer and if i connect this formatted hard drive on the computer it says disk i/o error.please help me as to how can i upload windows on the disk now because when i put boot floppies in it ...it doesnt do anything except for DISK I/O ERROR. Bharat

Hi Trog When i put in the windows start up disk it comes to A: and then i sys C: but what should i do next so as to load windows XP. Bharat

When exactly do you get this disk i/o error? If you can boot to floppy and get drive A: you are half way there. From drive A: type FORMAT C: If its then you then you get the i/o error the only alternative is to use fdisk and delete the existing partition and start again. Once you have the disk partitioned and formatted, boot from the Windows CD and install Windows. Stuart