Format C:

I was haveing problems with my second computer and because I had not cleared the hard drive for 18 months I did a high lvl format . the hdd is a 40 gig western digital and I have a disk for seting up the partitions and the FAT . I set 3 partitions , two 5 gig and one 30 gig . but when I tried to continue I get a fatal error . " Setup of drive 1 failed because the file allocation table could not read because there was an Int 13h error 16 reading drive one cylinder 0 head 0 sect 3 count 9 " .. I do have the option of using an old 2 gig hard drive as master and this one as a slave if i need to but I think I have to set partitions even to do that . a low level format is a posibility . but I have forgotten how to do that . I know it is considerd a last resort but I have done it on this drive before after checking with the WD support people who claim that their newer drives can handle it , unlike the older drives . I would be thankfull for any help . The sys specks are , P111 running at 666 , 384 megs of pc 133 sdram this HDD and a floppy . nothing more . I will be installing win 98 first edition . The power supply is only 250 watts but its fine for this machine .

 

Download the diagnostics from WD and have at it. I'm not sure where the confusion lies, can you be more specific?

 

I did try to make it clear sorry if I didnt , I got the file dlgdiag from WD and I am writing zerros to the drive , I will let you know what happens .

 

the low level format worked and the machine is back on the internet .

 

We love happy endings.