Bad boot sector

[NRG = mc²]

Hi,

Got an old 2.5gb Caviar drive, it tests out fine but I suspect that the boot sector is shot.

The drive has no bad sectors and I've written data on it all the way and read it back successfuly, but I cannot get it to install Windows, neither 2000 nor 98SE. After copying the files it cannot boot, the machine freezes. It did this on two different machines.

I tried an fdisk /mbr but nothing. Is there any way of fixing this or is this for the rubbish bin? Will a zeroing with DFT fix this perhaps?

I just dont want to waste any more time with it as time in DOS = no folding progress ;0)

 

[blakerwry]

Get the IBM tools Zap or Wipe, they will write zero's to the hard drive and will erase any MBR problem you're having.

Wipe does the whole hdd:
http://service.boulder.ibm.com/storage/hddtech/wipe.exe

zap does the 1st part of teh Hdd including the MBR:
http://service.boulder.ibm.com/storage/hddtech/zap.exe

 

[NRG = mc²]

Thanks will try those.

 

[Jake the Dog]

i haver a copy of EZ-Drive which is WD's disk manager. if the tools that blakerwry suggested don't work for you, perhaps EZ-Drive will. it's less than a meg in size too.

 

[NRG = mc²]

I've run the wipe utility, but haven't managed to test it yet.

Thanks for the suggestion