Just need 1 question answered.

I've posted several times, and gotten help to this problem, and I believe that now I've hit the end of the road for my HD.

It will format, not in windows, or via the windows setup utility, but it WILL format in Ranish Partitioner. However since that would only format to Fat-32, when I got into windows using my other HD, and I tried to click on My computer, my computer locked up. Well after this, I tried to convert it to NTFS in Windows Setup, and it said it couldn't copy the file to the harddrive. Sooo, does that mean it's time for it to go to HD heaven?

Try the ZAP utility located here:

http://www.microstorage.com/Harddriveinfo.htm

Disconnect other drives before using! This utility clears the first 128 sectors of the HDD and has helped in restoring several disks to functionaliy. The command structure will be detailaed in the readme and it needs to be used in a DOS environment. Normally, to clear the primary master drive, the command would be: zap 0, where 0 is the position of the HDD. It'd be easy to make a mistake and lose data, so remove the other HDDs before use. You'd then need to partition and format.

If this doesn't work, then get the manufacturer's drive utility and do a low level format. This will take a while to complete, so plan it for time away from the comp. This should clear the HDD completely. Perform a chkdsk/scandisk following to reallocate any bad sectors, then partition and format.

Good Luck!

Okay, I haven't tried the Zap utility yet, but I have tried the manufactures program, which did absolutely nothing. It didn't take to terribly long only about 20 minutes. It was the process of writing zero's to the drive.

I HAVE however gotten the drive to work *somehow* but it is formatted to FAT-32. Anyways, I used Ranish Partition Manager and was able to format it to FAT-32 and that now my computer can see it just fine in windows. Suprisingly, it is also ableo to copy files to it, which it couldn't seem to do while trying to format from the XP CD in DOS. Seeing how this isn't my OS drive, I can't imagine it would matter. I should think I will be able to run my games fine off of the FAT-32 drive.

If I do run into problems however, I will try that Zap Utility. I just can't imagine why it wouldn't let me format to NTFS off of the stupid disc, but it will let me format to anything else from a boot disc. *sigh*.

I'm thinking of using Partition Magic to format it to NTFS, but I'm scared it's just going to screw me all up again. I'm so tired of messing with it.

Have you tried using Memtest86 to check your memory for any errors? I usually end up tracking odd file system behavior back to bad RAM, and it doesn't hurt to check.

You might want to set your CPU to the default speed and use the least optimized memory settings you can. If Memtest failed before, see if it doesn't throw any errors now. You may also want to toggle the cache settings in Memtest to isolate which memory is giving the trouble (System or cache).

Are you sure that you are using a 40 pin IDE cable? Have you tried other cables to make sure that isn't the problem? Have you tried the drive on another system?

I'm not trying to blow you off, but there is still some leg work that needs to be done to isolate the problem before writing off the drive.