Problems reformatting Acer Laptop Hard drive

[brainpup]

I'm trying to reformat an Acer Laptop 120GB hard drive that had problems before with VISTA so I'm using my copy of Win XP Pro, (I own the Volume disk, and have used it several times with no problems). When I try and do a reformat it hangs at 80%.
I've used MEMtest86, no erorrs, I've tried Ultimate bootCD, no probs, I've tried SystemRescueCD, no help. I ran CHKDSK from a DOS prompt no problems. I ws going to replace the MBR but it says that I might not be able to access my drive if it doesn't work...is that true ?

Right now I'm trying a MS-DOS FORMAT from a command prompt and its taking forever. After 20 minutes its only at 1%.

Any body got any suggestion ? I'd sure be grateful.

 

[robjohnston]

Ok, I would try using a great tool called "gparted". Gparted is a linux platform that you boot from.

First off, download the gparted .iso file from here: http://sourceforge.net/projects/gparted/files/gparted-live-stable/ - click on 0.5.1-1, download the .iso file

Secondly, once that has downloaded, burn the image to a disk using nero, poweriso or other similar .iso burning software.

Next, pop the disc in the drive of the computer you want to format, restart the computer and enter the boot menu. On Acer laptops I believe the boot menu is accessed by tapping F12 on boot up or the ESC key. When the boot menu appears, select the CD/DVD Drive which has the gparted cd in it.

Gparted will begin loading. Leave everything at default. When it gives you three options, 0,1 and 2, choose option 0.
Once gparted has loaded up you will be presented with a basic "desktop" type environment and a window open in the middle, which lists your hard discs.

From there its quite self explanatory how to format the disc. Make sure you format it in NTFS rather than the default file system in gparted which is Ext3..
Hope this helps

 

[brainpup]

I'm trying to reformat an Acer Laptop 120GB hard drive that had problems before with VISTA so I'm using my copy of Win XP Pro, (I own the Volume disk, and have used it several times with no problems). When I try and do a reformat it hangs at 80%.
I've used MEMtest86, no erorrs, I've tried Ultimate bootCD, no probs, I've tried SystemRescueCD, no help. I ran CHKDSK from a DOS prompt no problems. I ws going to replace the MBR but it says that I might not be able to access my drive if it doesn't work...is that true ?

Right now I'm trying a MS-DOS FORMAT from a command prompt and its taking forever. After 20 minutes its only at 1%.

Any body got any suggestion ? I'd sure be grateful.

Problem solved, Hard drive had bad sectors throughout entire disk. *** canned it and put in a new Western Digital 320GB for $59 from Office Depot and reformatted with no problem. I'm using the Lappy right now to make this reply. Alls good in My world now.

 

[brainpup]

Best answer selected by brainpup.