Re: Help - can't re-install windows?

The message <6a21o49e5scnluuit7o40f0j2dr9eclcke@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
from Jaimie Vandenbergh <jaimie@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> contains these words:

On Wed, 28 Jan 2009 15:30:44 -0000, "John Brown" <ha_lf@xxxxxxxxxxxx>
wrote:

..yesterday when doing a clean install of Windows got the message during
the Set up..something like...
..there's a problem with your hard drive and Windows has been shut down to
prevent damage to your compute...you may have a virus or the drive may be
corrupted..suggest do CHECKDISC /F and check for hard drive corruption and
then restart the computer...

That shouldn't happen during a clean install. Did you choose to
reformat the disk? If not, it could have been leftover filesystem
corruption.

If you did reformat the disk, I'd start to test it for being broken.
Pop it into the machine, format the whole thing as a single NTFS
partition and then run chkdsk over it, look for damaged blocks. If you
don't see any, do a chkdsk /r and see if that finds any bad blocks.

If you're suspicious about a disk's serviceability, a much better
option would be to download the manufacturer's disk diagnostics program
and run that instead of faffing around with a high level format and
chkdsk. The disk checking utility might even provide an RMA submission
error code.

If you see any at all, RMA the drive.

...so I cut my losses and unconnected that drive (nice new 750gb Western
Digital) and reconnected another (a 5 year old Maxtor)..and started
over...all has gone well...Windows clean installed...great.
So now I'm wondering what to do with the other because I'd obvious
rather be
using the new disc.
If I now disconnected the Maxtor, reconnected the WD and try again with a
reformat and reinstallation of Windows...if it goes ok then I'll just wipe
the Maxtor later and if it doesn't I can presumably just reconnect the
Maxtor and expect things to be in working order exactly as it is now..is
that how you would see it?

After checking the disk and it either coming up good or being replaced
under warranty, I'd do that. The new disk will be easily twice-three
times as fast as the old disk.

A rule of thumb for performance gain is that a doubling of per platter
capacity gives approximately a 41% boost in SDTR (it'll also help reduce
seek time overhead due to there being more capacity per cylinder).
However, if the capacity increase is due entirely to doubling or
tripling the platter count, such as replacing a single platter 40GB
drive with a three platter 120GB unit, you'll only see a slight boost
due entirely to the larger drive being able to gather 3 times more data
per track seek.

Surfer's point about splitting stuff between disks is good, but you
could always have the old drive in the machine/in a USB caddy as your
place to backup to.

If the old maxtor drive is also sata (I've assumed the new one is, and
the OP hasn't said otherwise) he could always try cloning the winXP
partition across to the new drive and try it with that (assuming the new
drive passes the WD diagnostics).


--
Regards, John.

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