Unable to format hard disk

[Pat]

Somebody gave me their old laptop (IBM ThinkPad T22) which wasn't booting.
I tried reformatting the hard disk (after booting from a Windows XP Pro CD),
and although it appeared to be reformatting, at the end of the process
(which took almost 8 hours!) it came back saying it was "unable to format
the selected partition...". Does this mean the HD is bad and needs to be
replaced?

Assuming so, how can I tell which hard drives will be compatible with this
laptop? Although I've replaced desktop hard drives before, laptops are new
territory for me. So thanks for any help with this. I appreciate it.

Pat

 

[Rod Speed]

Somebody gave me their old laptop (IBM ThinkPad T22) which wasn't booting. I
tried reformatting the hard disk (after booting from a Windows XP Pro CD), and
although it appeared to be reformatting, at the end of the process (which took
almost 8 hours!) it came back saying it was "unable to format the selected
partition...". Does this mean the HD is bad and needs to be replaced?

Very likely. Get Hitachi's Drive Fitness Test
on CD and see what it says about the drive.
http://www.hitachigst.com/hdd/support/download.htm#DFT

Hitachi bought the IBM hard drive line.

Assuming so, how can I tell which hard drives will be compatible with this
laptop?

Its just the thickness that matters with that laptop.

Although I've replaced desktop hard drives before, laptops are new territory
for me.

Its not that much harder with laptops.

 

[Harry]

Pat wrote...

Somebody gave me their old laptop (IBM ThinkPad T22) which wasn't booting.
I tried reformatting the hard disk (after booting from a Windows XP Pro CD),
and although it appeared to be reformatting, at the end of the process
(which took almost 8 hours!) it came back saying it was "unable to format
the selected partition...". Does this mean the HD is bad and needs to be
replaced?

8 hours to format a drive, incredible.

How about just install XP with the XP Pro CD, without pre-formatting?
During the installation, chhose to install on say, 4 GB of disk space.
The installation will format just the 4 GB and install the OS on it.

If you're lucky (when install is OK), boot up to XP and do the
remaining formating.

If you have a 3rd party partition utility, like Acronis Partition
Expert, it can format a HDD in minutes, not hours.

Good luck.

 

[Jimmy]

Somebody gave me their old laptop (IBM ThinkPad T22) which wasn't booting.
I tried reformatting the hard disk (after booting from a Windows XP Pro
CD), and although it appeared to be reformatting, at the end of the
process (which took almost 8 hours!) it came back saying it was "unable to
format the selected partition...". Does this mean the HD is bad and needs
to be replaced?

Assuming so, how can I tell which hard drives will be compatible with this
laptop? Although I've replaced desktop hard drives before, laptops are
new territory for me. So thanks for any help with this. I appreciate it.

Pat

The original HDD was a 20GB model with optional 32GB offered. You may want
to stick with this unless you know for certain the BIOS can handle a larger
drive. However, you may want to take a look on the Lenovo support site
before discounting the current drive as dead. Bios update 1.09 corrected
boot problems relating to partition information. This is from the readme
file for the latest bios update v1.12 "(Fix) Some hard disk drive (HDD)
partition information causes boot
failure."
http://www-307.ibm.com/pc/support/site.wss/document.do?sitestyle=lenovo&lndocid=MIGR-4VWPPU


Also, you may wish to consider loading Win98 or W2K rather than XP. In its
basic form, the laptop is a 900MHz with 128MB (512 optional) ram. Given the
CPU, ram installed, and limited HDD size, WinXP will crawl. There won't be
a lot of room for apps and HDD space for virtual memory.

 

[Pat]

Thanks for all the replies on this.

I ran the Drive Fitness Test, and it indicated the drive was defective due
to "Excessive Shock". I can believe that, as the laptop formerly belonged
to my friends 11 year old son and was probably dropped (perhaps a few
times). Just to be sure, I will apply the bios update (which I wanted to
do any way) and try it again, although it's not clear to me how this could
be the cause, since it was working before.

Assuming the hard drive needs to be replaced, I was hoping to put a 40GB
drive in, as the price difference as 20GB and 40GB is not that great. How
can I tell for sure whether the system will support this?

Thanks again,

Pat

 

[Rod Speed]

Thanks for all the replies on this.

I ran the Drive Fitness Test, and it indicated the drive was
defective due to "Excessive Shock". I can believe that, as the
laptop formerly belonged to my friends 11 year old son and was
probably dropped (perhaps a few times). Just to be sure, I will
apply the bios update (which I wanted to do any way) and try it
again, although it's not clear to me how this could be the cause,
since it was working before.

Assuming the hard drive needs to be replaced, I was hoping to put a
40GB drive in, as the price difference as 20GB and 40GB is not that
great. How can I tell for sure whether the system will support this?

Only by asking if anyone has tried the 40G with that specific craptop.

Likely it will show up as 32G at worst given that that
was one drive that was available with the craptop.