BADMBR, Primary volume, 114471.0 MB on Disk:2

[nevndsouza]

I got a new Hp laptop with a SATA hard drive with vista, i had installed Partition Magic 8 to format an ext HD at that time it even showed :'( that my current HD of 120 is BAD with a yellow lable, after restarting my sys it never came on.. I even tried to install XP it tells me i dont have a hard disk

I put this HD into another system n i manager to atleast :) recover my data :'( but not not able to format it with Partition magic it give me an error = Formatting partition: H: (BADMBR, Primary volume, 114471.0 MB on Disk:2) :-\ windows formating give me unable to format.
Please Help

[markymoo]

Partition Magic is terrible for Vista and last time i looked wasn't compatible. It pretty much sounds like it misreporting the drive geometry so thats why you cant see it. It wrote a bad MBR.

first of all stop using Partition Magic and try this boot CD it has plenty of good wiping tools. if you see wipe MBR, erase sector 0 or wipe entire drive in any options tick it. there is a utility on there called Dariks Boot and Nuke and more.

http://www.ultimatebootcd.com/

direct CD image file to burn
http://directtechsupport.com/UBCD/ubcd411.iso

alternatively try this which is on the CD above.

http://www.killdisk.com/downloadfree.htm

[nevndsouza]

Thanks the reply. but will i wl ble to resore my HD? im dwnlding the file, it is tooo slow as i got a dile up connection. but ill till try it out, so which link would help me out?? i have started with the second link tht got the iso file.

So.:doubt: u mean using partition magic on vista is not at all recom' ??? neway this time i will install W' XP (im more comfor' with that)

[nevndsouza]

Thanks the reply. but will i wl ble to resore my HD? im dwnlding the file, it is tooo slow as i got a dile up connection. but ill till try it out, so which link would help me out?? i have started with the second link tht got the iso file.

So.:doubt: u mean using partition magic on vista is not at all recom' ??? neway this time i will install W' XP (im more comfor' with that)

[markymoo]

the activekilldisk can be installed to a floppy that's alot smaller download.

http://software.lsoft.net/killdiskfloppysetup.exe

PM is not fully compatible with certain drives with XP as it is.

[nevndsouza]

Dude I've got a 114471.0MB Fujitsu I had made an ISO disk of that second file but that only dected my HDD but dint work. *puppy* I even tried to wipe out my entire Disk but that still dint work.
Should i try the floppy drive file u recom' ? what should i do with it, how would it help me??

??? What has actully gone wrong with my HDD????

[markymoo]

download the floppy file. insert a floppy disk and run the download. it will give intructions and write to the floppy. there is alot of help on the website. you need to boot from the floppy when you turn your PC on.

the hard drive is ok it just needs fully wiping.

[nevndsouza]

I did download that file to the floopy and booted from that it asked if i wanted to erase-all-data n i cont' with that, it took about 45min but :'( still doesnt work. my laptop doesnt have a floopy drive so have attached this HDD to my system, :-\ i insert it back into the laptop n run the win xp setup even this time it tells me No HDD found in ur system.:'( :'(

[Jtaylor83]

First, PartitionMagic is Symantec product. Second, PM will crash if a Vista partition is present.

You should try getter a better disk partition utility like GParted.

[markymoo]

did you do a full erase of the drive ? if the partition table is damaged at sector 0 the hard drive will not be detected by XP. try another utility such as GParted recommended. it quite possible the hard drive is physically damaged after all.