Fixes for hard disk errors?

nitzmoff

I've been trying to reformat my pc and reinstall Windows XP all day now.

After I enter the key code and it restarts for the first time I get BSoD'd (with error code Stop: 0x0000007B) when selecting to run the Win XP install. If I choose to start Win XP normally, it's fine. I've never had any problems with my machine before.

When I run chkdsk /f it finds nothing wrong. However, Seagate's own disk checking utility finds errors on both my hard drives.

Is there any way to remedy this? I have downloaded all manners of disk repairing utilities but they all do nothing. Anyone experienced this before and know what to do?

Mongrelman

Not sure I'm afraid.

I've had a problem with my old hard drive, and it would crash when tring to install XP on it. I found though, that choosing 'quick format' when going through the install options worked.

Might want to try that.

<shrug>

nitzmoff

I'm afraid I can't even get to that option. As soon as the first restart occurs, before any formatting choices, it BSoDs.

Jarrod1937

does it say anything specific on the bsod? usually it tells more than just the stop error.
however here is what microsoft has to say about it.
and if you can't get to the format options why don't you use a floppy program (like maxblast) to format the drive then reinstall windows? or you could take it to a friends house, hook it up as a slave and format it within windows, however if it is a bootsector virus i am not sure if i would do that.

Pseudo

I had a similar problem, and it turned out that it was my memory that was bad so it was copying bad files to my hard drive.

I downloaded and ran Memtest 86 and found that one of my two sticks of memory had a handful of errors on it. When I removed the bad memory everything formatted installed and ran fine.

It might not be the same issue you are having, but it might be worth checking out if you cant solve the hard drive problem.

Psyk0

Yup ive seen that same problem about the RAM, it probably got 10% installed and then bsod.

You could try taking out one of the sticks (well if you have 2 or more) and see if install works, then you know which one is bad, or like Pseudo said run memtest.