I posted a few days ago about a couple folders no longer working link
so i check disk it and it tells me it can't read a huge list of sectors on the drive, well i'm thinking bad sectors, so i backup everything that's not corrupted and go to reformat the partition. I get a message telling me to turn off any utilities accessing the hard drive. I'm surprised considering that i have nothing running, and i have nothing that starts up with windows that would be acessing that particular drive. So i'm confused, i've given up on retrieving all data and just want the partition reformatted, but i can't. Any help would be appreciated.

P.S. for any that did visit that link i still haven't figured out what was going on with the disappearing folders on the other drive, i just kind of gave up on that one. Again, any help is appreciated.

A couple of questions....
1) What kind of drive? (Maker/Size/Connection).
2) I'm guessing you're driving XP, but please confirm.
3) After reading your link, have you used something like partition magic to convert the drive wholesale to (Fat 32, NTFS, whatever) and then back again? If the problem is not the MBR, then it is either a) a corruption w/in the registry that is causing the files/folders to be hidden or b) a lower level app like Maxblast that is doing hd translations.
4) If it is an IDE drive, can you try putting it in an external cage connected via USB/Firewire to see if there is any change? (unless it's your boot drive)

If you've given up on rescuing the info and just want a reformat, then you should be able to take the drive to a different computer, hook it up as a slave, then delete partition, recreate partition, then reformat. (In theory, if not in practice.) Otherwise, once you've answered some of the above questions, it might point out the next steps to take.

Graa.

I viewed your other post and noticed the stuff you are having problems reading are media files, well this doesn't really solve any problems if your hard drive is actually bad, but i had some problems before when you get so much stuff in one directory. For me it was with video files and when i would open the folder the computer would freeze, later on the stuff got corrupted so i reformatted, from then i don't allow more than approx 15-20 media files (especially videos) in a folder. So far that has helped me out.

Quote: Originally Posted by Graaille A couple of questions.... 1) What kind of drive? (Maker/Size/Connection). 2) I'm guessing you're driving XP, but please confirm. 3) After reading your link, have you used something like partition magic to convert the drive wholesale to (Fat 32, NTFS, whatever) and then back again? If the problem is not the MBR, then it is either a) a corruption w/in the registry that is causing the files/folders to be hidden or b) a lower level app like Maxblast that is doing hd translations. 4) If it is an IDE drive, can you try putting it in an external cage connected via USB/Firewire to see if there is any change? (unless it's your boot drive) If you've given up on rescuing the info and just want a reformat, then you should be able to take the drive to a different computer, hook it up as a slave, then delete partition, recreate partition, then reformat. (In theory, if not in practice.) Otherwise, once you've answered some of the above questions, it might point out the next steps to take. Graa.

Sorry it took so long to respond:
1) maxtor 160gb ide drive
2)yup running xp pro
3)i've not used any third party software to try and reformat, i'll try partition magic to see if it has any luck, any other suggestions as to what apps to try?
4) it is a slave, but unfortunately i don't own an external cage, nor do i have to the money to buy one, otherwise i'd just call it quits on the drive, buy a new one from newegg, and just transfer everything still living on that drive.

Thanks

And in response to the other comment, yeah i kind of attributed the folder inactivity to the huge amouint of media i had in the directory and subsequent sub directories. Not real worried about that, my big problem right now is trying to get this partition reformatted.

Quote: Originally Posted by jimbojones Sorry it took so long to respond: 1) maxtor 160gb ide drive

OK, Get into the Wabac machine and try to remember whether or not the first format of that drive was done w/xp or if it was done w/the cd that came w/the drive. I would hazard a guess that it was done w/maxblast (which is generally s.o.p. w/maxtor drives.) which is why xp can't touch it correctly. Which leads me to...

Quote: Originally Posted by jimbojones 4) it is a slave, but unfortunately i don't own an external cage, nor do i have to the money to buy one, otherwise i'd just call it quits on the drive, buy a new one from newegg, and just transfer everything still living on that drive.

Hmmm, I was remembering mine being only around $25, but I went back and looked and that was the 2.5" external cage. Just checked Walmart and they want $88 for one for 3.5" drives. Yep, for that, you could replace the drive easily.

Try this, can you boot into safe mode and reformat the drive? If you can, great. Otherwise, I'd definately bet that it's Maxblast software thats causing problems. Shouldn't be an inherent problem w/windows, main reason I know is that I have folders like both you and jhoop describe w/mp3s, videos, and what not w/ between 2-4K files in them, and not a corrupted one yet (knock on wood).

Quote: Originally Posted by Graaille OK, Get into the Wabac machine and try to remember whether or not the first format of that drive was done w/xp or if it was done w/the cd that came w/the drive. I would hazard a guess that it was done w/maxblast (which is generally s.o.p. w/maxtor drives.) which is why xp can't touch it correctly. Which leads me to... Hmmm, I was remembering mine being only around $25, but I went back and looked and that was the 2.5" external cage. Just checked Walmart and they want $88 for one for 3.5" drives. Yep, for that, you could replace the drive easily. Try this, can you boot into safe mode and reformat the drive? If you can, great. Otherwise, I'd definately bet that it's Maxblast software thats causing problems. Shouldn't be an inherent problem w/windows, main reason I know is that I have folders like both you and jhoop describe w/mp3s, videos, and what not w/ between 2-4K files in them, and not a corrupted one yet (knock on wood).

The original reformat was using max blast but since then i have clean installed on my master.

Just tried a reformat in safe mode with no luck
Looks like i can reformat it using maxblast again, but it would seem that i can't just reformat that one partition, which is what i'd like to do. The other half of the drive is pretty much filled to the brim. Any ideas? And thanks for the help guys.

have you tried reformatting it with the windows xp setup utility instead of a third party program??

OK, last thing I can think of is . . . . can you lay your hands on a Win98 boot floppy? Sometimes you gotta break down and go old school on it. Boot directly to the floppy and run fdisk. Had that work for a couple of Maxtor disks before, and doing a google search found several other instances of it working. However, there is a good chance that unless you're blowing away the extended partition that you're going to nuke your data.


But if you want your drive back.........
And after you wipe it clean, reformat it w/xp -- not maxblast.

Quote: Originally Posted by Graaille OK, last thing I can think of is . . . . can you lay your hands on a Win98 boot floppy? Sometimes you gotta break down and go old school on it. Boot directly to the floppy and run fdisk. Had that work for a couple of Maxtor disks before, and doing a google search found several other instances of it working. However, there is a good chance that unless you're blowing away the extended partition that you're going to nuke your data. But if you want your drive back......... And after you wipe it clean, reformat it w/xp -- not maxblast.

I think i just may borrow a hard drive from a buddy and just back up the entire drive, then just reformat the entire thing. Thanks for the help.