formatting question

[Narrock]

Okay, here's the deal: I've built many computers for myself, my family and friends for the last 15 years, and I'm running into a head-scratcher for about the 2nd time in 15 years. Anyway, I pulled an older system out of the garage and did a few upgrades so my wife can play wow too. I also upgraded my main system.. got a 300 gig velociraptor 10,000 rpm HD, and put my old 80 gig drive in the old systwm I",m building for my wife. I installed win 7 64bit on the new HD for my main system, but forgot that I already used that license on the 80 gig drive I'm putting in my wife"s system. So naturally, Microsoft detected that and I get the error message "this is not a genuine version of windows... blah blah" constantly and I get a lot of errors with other applications like Mumble (a better voice chat program than Ventrilo) etc. Ok, no problem, I'll just format the hard drive and install my old windows XP os, right? Wrong. Microsoft parried this idea by first blocking me access to my own bios. They set some kind of administrator pw. No problem, I just popped out the battery from the mobo for half an hour to give the stored electricity to discharge from the system and reset the bios. Succcess! I now have access to the bios. I set "first bootable drive" to CD Rom, 2nd bootable to HD, hit F10 to "save and continue", popped in my windows xp disc, rebooted the system, and began the formatting process. /FAIL. When I get to the screen where you select the partition to install the os on, it"s giving me the message "you cannot install on that partition" or something like that. There's only two partitions you can choose. I tried them both, and even tried creating a new partition... Nothing works. Halp!

[Arlos]

Don't know a solution, but why not just go get a new hard drive? They are insanely cheap. You can get a brand new 160 gig from NewEgg for $85, and thus avoid the entire issue.

-Arlos

[Narrock]

I know, but I'm pissed and feel challenged and beaten and want to fight to the bitter end, plus save myself 85 bucks. lol

[brinstar]

i would try this:

1. power down, remove raptor
2. put in an_old_drive00 in its place
3. do fresh install of XP on the new drive, power down
4. put raptor back with jumper set as slave, restart
5. boot into XP
6. format raptor from XP, power down
7. remove an_old_drive00
8. switch jumper on raptor to master
9. boot up and do fresh install on raptor

things you will need for this idea:

• an_old_drive00
• time
• patience

[Narrock]

I'll try that this weekend, thx.

[Tossica]

delete the partition and create a new one.

[Narrock]

delete the partition and create a new one.

I tried that and it wouldn't let me. I put that in my first post.

[Tossica]

it says you tried to create a new partition. You can't create a new partition if the entire drive is already partitioned. Delete the existing partitions. If it won't allow you to, the partitions could "hidden" by the OEM. You'll need to use "diskpart" or some other low level utility to access the partitions.

[Narrock]

Oh ok. I deleted the 2 existing partions and tried to create new ones, but it blocked my attempt. I'll check out that diskpart, thx.

[Narrock]

Woot! http://www.ehow.com/how_7825029_use-dis ... ition.html

[Tossica]

Did Diskpart work?

[Narrock]

Nope. I'm just gonna buy that 44 dollar 160 gig 7200rpm HD at newegg. I'm tired of fucking with it at this point.

[Gaazy]

how cheap did you find it?

Im amazed at how cheap stuff is and what kind of deals I found because I have never done stuff like building my own computer, upgrading, stuff like that. I just bought a couple external hard drives and the 2.5" laptop 500gb drive for my ps3 and thats the first stuff ive ever bought like that. Maybe ill have to learn how to do some of my own harware or computer building stuff someday, it seems interesting enough

Although, I hard I still overpaid on the drives, something about floods overseas or some such

[Narrock]

how cheap did you find it?

Im amazed at how cheap stuff is and what kind of deals I found because I have never done stuff like building my own computer, upgrading, stuff like that. I just bought a couple external hard drives and the 2.5" laptop 500gb drive for my ps3 and thats the first stuff ive ever bought like that. Maybe ill have to learn how to do some of my own harware or computer building stuff someday, it seems interesting enough

Although, I hard I still overpaid on the drives, something about floods overseas or some such

I've been building systems for about the last 15 years or so. The best prices and best customer service I found was at newegg.com. Every once in a while I'll buy something at tigerdirect.com. Newegg also has unparalleled RMA service.

[Arlos]

Amazon actually has good deals on a lot of components as well. Some better than newegg, some worse.

-Arlos