|
|
skampydog
regular
Reg'd: Tue
Posts: 642
Loc: Yorkshire
|
|
I have inherited a similar problem to this thread from my brother-in-law who threw his laptop at me yesterday saying that it wouldn't boot up.
And it wouldn't, not in normal mode, last known working setting or safe mode. Each time windows loaded the laptop rebooted, there was a very quick (literally 1 microsecond) of an error message just prior to this
'Leave it with me' says I
I have the recovery disk and attempted a clean re-install; did the quick format to no avail: windows still refuse to boot insisting that some file was corrupt and to try and reinstall that file - er, how like?
So, I went for the full format and it has taken all night to get to 4% - at this rate it will be the new year before it completes
so the help I need is this?
1. should I have deleted the existing partitions as greysts suggested in the above link
2. does it normally take forever to format the laptop
for assistance the screen is displaying the following at the moment
Windows XP Home Edition Set UP
Please wait while setup formats the partition
c:Partition1 [NTFS] 38146 MB (37632 MB free)
on 38155 MB disk 0 at ID 0 on bus 0 on atapi [MBR]
status bar = setup is formatting - 4%
Thanks in advance
ps at work at the moment so have left the stupid thing running at home but it will be 6.30 pm before I can get in front of it again
--------------------
XP Home
Office Pro + FrontPage, IE6
AVG, Zone Alarm
|
|
greysts
regular
Reg'd: Thu
Posts: 17983
Loc: Colchester
|
|
You wouldn't expect to change my mind, would you? Yes you should have deleted all existing partitions and created a new one. Formatting the existing setup won't clear stuff properly.
--------------------
Do you know that we're all in line for succession to the throne? Really?
Well, if forty-eight million, two hundred thousand, seven hundred and one people died I'd be Queen.
|
skampydog
regular
Reg'd: Tue
Posts: 642
Loc: Yorkshire
|
|
No not really. 
Err, having never had to do this before is it dead obvious how to delete the partition(s) (I think there were two, one large and one very, very small) prior to a clean install?
thanks again in advance
--------------------
XP Home
Office Pro + FrontPage, IE6
AVG, Zone Alarm
|
RichieP
regular
Reg'd: Thu
Posts: 4737
|
|
There's usually one that shows as 8mb, which I think is the master boot record. The menus will show you how to delete the partitions, but you need to press D, then Enter, then L. I think.
If it's still a problem, I'd suspect the hard drive is dying.
--------------------
 OK OK I can't go any faster! aaaaaaaaaaaagh!
|
Rennes
new user
Reg'd: Wed
Posts: 14
|
|
HI,
I recently reinstalled windows XP home using a recovery disk. There were 2 partitions,a small one in FAT32 and a large one in ntfs for C:\drive. I only formatted the large partition and I am sure that this is correct. I believe that the small one relates to the hardware on the PC.The reinstallation was successfull.
|
RichieP
regular
Reg'd: Thu
Posts: 4737
|
|
The FAT32 partition is usually a recovery partition containing all the necessary files to restore the Operating System to its original factory-shipped state. It's usually accessible by pressing a key such as F10 at startup, by using a recovery CD, or a program on the start menu.
If any of your devices don't work, eg sound, then the recovery partition will install everything properly for you.
--------------------
OK OK I can't go any faster! aaaaaaaaaaaagh!
|
Previous
Index
Next
Threaded
Edit
Reply
Quote
