Listen to Pegasus; he knows what he is talking about.
The fact of the matter is hard drives can and do go bad. The only way to
know for sure is run a diagnostic. You can download what you need to
make a bootable diagnostic CD or floppy from the drive manufacturer's
Web site. You may even use HDAT2 to determine and repair bad sectors (if
that's the only issue):
http://www.hdat2.com/
What is the make and model of your hard drive?
Furtermore, you're not using Windows 98, so there is no need to use a
floppy with MS-DOS to fdisk the hard drive. The XP installation CD is
bootable (make sure you configure the PC to boot off the CD!) and
contains everything needed to format the hard drive.
For detailed directions for a Clean Install, see:
http://michaelstevenstech.com/cleanxpinstall.html
Good luck!
Daniel wrote:
> Sometimes the file allocation or system is corrupted and windows
> cannot see it, the fact that
> recovery consol sees it indicates that it is not necessarily a
> defective disk.
>
> I have had this happen before on my PC and all I had to do was format
> the disk in dos
> and reinstall windows, that Hard Drive is still working 5 years later.
>
> cheers
>
> Daniel
>
> "Pegasus [MVP]" <news@microsoft.com> wrote in message
> news$CfIgS3KHA.5084@TK2MSFTNGP02.phx.gbl...
>> If the WinXP installation CD does not recognise your hard disk then
>> it either requires a proprietary driver or else it is defective. You
>> should download and run the diagnostic program that its manufacturer
>> has on his web site.
>>
>> "Daniel" <noone@nowhere.com> wrote in message
>> news:eLvK5OR3KHA.5880@TK2MSFTNGP02.phx.gbl...
>>> To all
>>>
>>> the hard drive has lost it's file allocation and the CD does not
>>> recognise it as valid
>>> and will not install to it.
>>>
>>> But recovery consol does see it and will format it but I do not
>>> know what FAT it will format to.
>>>
>>> Thanks
>>>
>>> Daniel
>>> "db" <databaseben at hotmail dot com> wrote in message
>>> news:E8DD9727-5A2C-4017-88E5-F7BF7ABC1792@microsoft.com...
>>>> if the disk already has
>>>> windows installed
>>>>
>>>> you can simply convert
>>>> it to ntfs without formatting
>>>> and reinstalling the o.s.
>>>>
>>>> --
>>>>
>>>> db·´¯`·...¸><)))º>
>>>> DatabaseBen, Retired Professional
>>>> - Systems Analyst
>>>> - Database Developer
>>>> - Accountancy
>>>> - Veteran of the Armed Forces
>>>> - Microsoft Partner
>>>> - @hotmail.com
>>>> ~~~~~~~~~~"share the nirvana" - dbZen
>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>
>>>> "Daniel" <Noone@nowhere.com> wrote in message
>>>> news:eNO$3DG3KHA.5212@TK2MSFTNGP04.phx.gbl...
>>>>> Hi
>>>>>
>>>>> when using recovery console what do I type to format the C drive
>>>>> to the NTFS file system?
>>>>>
>>>>> thanks
>>>>>
>>>>> Daniel