Bad Old Maxtor!!! Help!!!

Hi! I own a MAXTOR 2.5 GB HD. Sadly, right now, bad sectors make my system hang/freeze. I have re-FDISKed it, and re-FORMATED it. And I have used Scandisk (DOS) to make all the bad or unreliable sector. Then, I tried re-installing WINDOWS 95 OSR2, during the installation somewhere, it freezed again, so I re-formatted my HD and attempt to install win 95 again, same thing happened.

I also, tried re-formating and re-FDISK the drive, same thing still happened, tried running scandisk again and again, maked all the bad sector..... still, same thing happened.

Now, two questions:
1) how the feak in the world can I make my system to stop trying to recover the bad sectors during the formatting process.
2) What should I do to get my system up and running again.

Try buying a new harddrive you tard!

Personally, i think you should pay a visit to http://www.dabs.com and treat yourself to a new hard drive, going by previous experiences - messing about with a hard disk in its death throes is an exercise in futility.
If thats completely out of the question, have a look at this - http://www.hardwaresecrets.com/case8.html

In my opinion, it's not worth fighting (assuming it's even fixable). Just go out and get a new hard drive. They're pretty cheap right now anyway. All hard drives are destined to fail some day. If yours is only a 2.5 gig, I would assume it's old and very used. It could last another 5 years, but it could also last another 5 minutes (assuming it's fixable right now) You would want to replace it before it dies.

Lawrence, it sounds like you need to do a low-level format. I'm not 100% sure about it, but I know this fixed bad sectors on older drives.

Your drive manufacturer should have a low level format utility for download from their site. Just make sure you get the correct one, otherwise you could irrevocably damage the drive.

Louie does have a good point though, drive space is so inexpensive now that for $100 you can get a good quality 20GB+ drive, which will give you a lot more space than what you have now.

Start up with a boot disk then format through the set up of windows. I also have a Maxtor HD and had to format it through this method. so hope that helped a bit

Your shining light into a black whole. Kick the hard drive out the window and piss on it!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Then buy a new one.

In case you haven't noticed, this older computers can't use today's HDs. The BIOS and the mainboard doesn't support huge HDs like 30 GB. I can't find a 13 GB anymore. MaxBlast and stuff like that don't work on my system! IF my systme were to support larger HD, I would thorugh it out of the window.

Um..... I also tried using the WIN setup to format the HD, but didn't work.

Thanks for the link.... I'm looking for my stupid drive's model..... (dame HD!!!!)

It may be the Windows CD is bad. Test your harddrive with a different OS. Try installing Linux on it and see if it gives you any problems, (or windows from a different CD). I had a friend that had a similar problem and it turned out to be the CD, not the HD. Hope this helps. Good luck.

Happy Hacking

Lawrence: Are you sure? Maybe you just formatted with the FAT16 file system and assumed it couldn't support a large drive? I have never heard of an old computer not supporting a newer drive.

Yea, i had that problem, its the damn motherboard, it cant detect the full drive, and MaxBlast doesnt work, so i had to limit my drive to 32 gigs, instead of the full 80. But my new motherboard shuld fix that problem nicely :)

Older motherboard have barriers of 2.1, 8.4, 13, 30 GB and currently, 137 GB is the new barrer for new systems (even if Maxtor have invented the BIG DIRVE technology). Mine is 13 GB, and however, no point since I'm wait for the 64-bit age to pop-up (which won't be far), when Intel Pentium 5 and AMD Althon Somthing finally deliever 64-bit CPUS (true 64-bit).

Right now, the only processer that's 64-bit (from either one of these largest chips manufactures) is Intel Itainum (somthing) processer, which is like thousands of dollars. This processer support GBs of RAM, Terrabytes of HD....etc VERY POWERFULLL!!!!!

Right now, I just have to make my system stop recovering the Bad Sectors and install windows 95.

Thank you and I'll try my new copy of Corel Linux SE. Also, I tried a Maxtor 30 GB HD, I can't even get my system pass the first screen (where the memory check and devices a decteted).

Quote:

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Originally posted by lawrence171
Older motherboard have barriers of 2.1, 8.4, 13, 30 GB and currently, 137 GB is the new barrer for new systems (even if Maxtor have invented the BIG DIRVE technology). Mine is 13 GB, and however, no point since I'm wait for the 64-bit age to pop-up (which won't be far), when Intel Pentium 5 and AMD Althon Somthing finally deliever 64-bit CPUS (true 64-bit).



Right now, the only processer that's 64-bit (from either one of these largest chips manufactures) is Intel Itainum (somthing) processer, which is like thousands of dollars. This processer support GBs of RAM, Terrabytes of HD....etc VERY POWERFULLL!!!!!

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1) There are quite a few 64 bit processors out there, just not from Intel or AMD, and not widely available for the desktop. Many RISC processors are 64 Bit, like Sun's Sparc processor.

2) I'm surprised at the number of people who are too young to have lived with drive size limitations. It wasn't that long ago, y'know. I feel like an oldtimer and I'm only 20! :)

I have just contacted MAXTOR TECH SUPPORT and they also recommand me to LOW-FORMAT (OR SOMETHING) my HD. Well, for the 64-bit things, I was talking about it because I want it cheap. I don't wanna spent thousands of dollars on it, I want it to be cheap. As cheap as the Althon XP processers of today!!!!

Of course, 64-bit system will also need 64-bit everything (which are very rare today), lets hope Creative, Microsoft, Corel, *nix community, hardware manufacture will enter the 64-bit age very soon!!!

HELP Again! This dame old thing. I tried to low-format it (re-write the whole thing with 0s) but still, it wouldn't work. During the high-level format, it is still trying to recover all the bad sectors!!!!

give it up man! if you want it cheap, go to a computer show and by a refurb mach for 35 bucks.