Re-Installing XP - Freezes during the formatting of the hard drive?

Question

Whether i choose to do a quick format or long format it just seems to do nothing..   any ideas.

I have tried deleting the partition and creating a new one, and this does not seem to change anything..

I guess one alternative is to boot from a cd to a command prompt (like the old win98 boot disks) and format it manually?  but where can i get these from.  I am at home on another laptop and have no floppy drive here.  Whatever the solution, it needs to be able ot work from cd rom and boot from it too.

Thanks.

Antil0ck · Accepted Answer

Two things can be going on here. You might have  a bad install disk. Take a look at the CD and confirm that it has not been damaged or scratched too much. 

Another thing, There could be some piece of hardware that is causing the hangup. But this would be sporadic and not cause a hang up upon trying to format. 

If you can get a hold of another install CD maybe borrow one from friend (do not worry. you will use your own install Key) and try to install again. 

You could also remove any hardware that is not needed like soundcard, modem, ethernet card etc.. 

Only leave the bare essential hardware installed. This will minimize the chance of the issue being a hardware issue. 

I think it's the CD. 

Antil0ck

Anonymous · Answer

You can usually find them online. Just google them, and then follow the formatting instructions.  Also try manually deleting and cleaning the hard drive with windows commands, in case there is a corrupt virus that doesnt get deleted by the windows program.

Anonymous · Answer

Try Boot.com (link below).  This site will allow you to download win98SE software to create a boot disk.

Common Sense! · Answer

Call the Geek Squad....

Trending News

Re-Installing XP - Freezes during the formatting of the hard drive?

4 Answers