Cannot format hard drive in dos format

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13 Oct 2008
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66
Hello,

My friend has given me his web-book. It has two drives, one solid state and one HDD. I am currently trying to install XP onto the machine but for some reason when I install it on the solid state, everytime it comes to the GUI phase of the XP installation it throws a blue screen.
I have came to the conclusion that it may work on the HDD instead. The problem is that the XP cd does not see the HDD. I believe this is due to the fact that the HDD is formated in EXT4.
I have tried many differnt ways to get it converted back to a dos file system. Ive tried Hirens boot cd and even KNOPPIX to format it. Hirens does not see the disk in most HD tools and in the few it does see it, when I format it XP still cant see it. When I format it with KNOPPIX it says its in NTFS, but again I cant see it with the XP cd.

Can anyone please help
 
Make sure the SSD is set to IDE in the BIOS - if it is AHCI XP may not like it [pre-SP2].

XP itself should be able to format the HDD - doesn't matter what existing filesystem is on it.
 
God damn it. It wont turn on now.

I went home and downloaded the CD. I booted up with it and it started running fine. I went away and came back a few hours later and it had ran out of battery. Now I am pushing the power button and it wont turn on. When I plug it in to the wall the battery says its charging but it still doesnt turn on. Help :(
 
If the battery is completely dead it may not turn on until it's partially charged. It should be fine by now if you've not already tried it.
 
Ok this is old but just to finish off this thread.

It wouldnt turn on as the battery had ran out and the Charger was bust. Once I got a new charger it turned on.

The reason that it couldnt see the HDD was because the HDD neaded RAID drivers.

Thanks for all the help guys.
 
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