Help needed to clean hard drive

[trueblue]

Hi all I have a 60gb Hard drive (seagate barracuda IV which is only 5 mths old) which I loaded windows home XP onto in NTFS format with only one large partition only .

Problem is I use norton ghost the other day and it had an error during the operation and put a corrupted virtual partitian on my hard drive. I wasn't able to run anything after that.

So I tried reformatting using the XP disc and it kept coming up with disc errors during the format. I had to use the quick format to get the system running again. I also tried using the windows scan and repair utility then reformat but I had no success.

What I believe is happening is all the info and virual partitian is still on my hard drive especially in the MBR and because formatting does not really delete the information on the disc it is giving me problems.

What I need is a program which completly CLEANS the entire contents of my hard drive and possibly fix any bad clusters that may now be there. Any suggestions you may all have to fix my problem would be appreciated.

Regards Trueblue

 

[boyRacer]

Try this... I don't know if it has a low-level format option... but that's what you do if you want to wipe the hard drive. it sounds like its about to die though so try testing it first.

 

[KaGee]

You need to get a bootable diskette and do an FDISK from dos.
Delete all existing partitions and then recreate a new one.
Then do FORMAT C:. That should clearup the drive an allow a new installation of XP.

 

[SemperFi]

When I have weird problems with my hard drive is I use the floppy that comes with the drive or download utilities and use the write 0's to the drive. I haven't owned a seagate in years so I am only assuming they have that feature. I do know that maxtor and WD have it in their utilities. While you are at it might as well test it while you are there. Just to be sure.

 

[tomcas1]

You could try clearing the master boot record. Fdisk/MBR.
When ever I suspect a failing harddrive I always run the utility direct from hard drive manufacturer. The utility usually creates a boot floppy from which to run. The manufacturer utilities are much better than Windows at finding problems and correcting them. They also allow you to do a low level format and if problems are found they will give you codes that you use to get a warranty replacement if it is still in effect.