Desperate!!!!!! grrrrr!!!!

[Frosty]

*ahem*

AARRRRGGGGGGGgggg , Bugger , F*ck

I have nvr wasted a Saturday like i wasted last saturday, there was alot of niggles with my comp so i decided to format, i spent from 11am to 11 pm trying to do this traditionally simple task, fdisk.exe,format.exe all failed!!!
From a range of "Incorrect Ms-Dos Version" to "This drive cannot be formatted bcos it is still mounted, unmount y/n ......y..... Failed...". I used start-up disks from win xp ,win 98, win 2000 all to noo bloody avail grrrr!!! , when i did install xp pro i still noticed proggies from b4 and the boot-up time was still above 3 mins on a 2.2xp,512 ram etc. I formatted again, i thought cleaningly...........but i am now bk in the same position that i formatter for,an amazing long boot up time (3mins +)...i checked my msconfig ,pritty much clear, i thought it might be virus...thats why i formatted!!!!!!!!

Any help to fix this boot up prob would be amazingly,
greatfully,
fanatically appreciated!!

Thx Adam

(could the prob be summit 2 do with my two hd's??)

[Ferral]

Try booting from the 98 CD to a command prompt and using the format command in the WIN98 directory on it

[Frosty]

.hmm ive managed 2 format...i was kinda hoping that i could just fix it without having 2 go through formatting again (just after installing drives,games etc again)

still thx, any more help would be real appreciated.

Adam

[Butuz]

Moved to hardware forum.

Butuz

[Stringent]

Next time download the manufacturers diskette and low level format (so long as you can backup your stuff on another drive), then use your Windows 200 disk to setup partitions and stuff.

[Nick]

Try different versions of your GFX drivers. The Det 41.09s were the only ones that didnt cause massively long boot times fro me... the latest set (I forget the number) are fine too... everything in-between was cack though.

You might have a dodgy component in there, so I suggest booting with everything stripped out, if you've got a coupla sticks of memory, try taking one out and see what happens. Or try moving cards to different PCI slots....

[TiG]

With just a clean Windows install on the system you still get 3 mins boot times?.

How long does it take from where XP takes to initialise. I.e after all the dos black screen posts.

You've not got raid or sata setup have you?

TiG

[Frosty]

wish i had sata but nay

The boot-up kinda stalls and the screen goes completely black just after the winxp loading bar bit has finished, then literally bout 3-4 mins later i see the blue logon-screen, this is even with safe mode.Im using 44.03 on my Gf4 mx440, ive only had this prob a month or so but i don't really have time to got formatting again and again.But i sense another format is the prob what'll be needed, but why didn't this 1 work?

HHmmm any1 had same prob with similar situation ie:

Decent spec compy with ridiculous boot-up times + fresh format..?

Here's specceh:

TbredA @ 2.2xp
Epox 8rda+
2x256 @180
Gf4mx440
Fujitsu 15Gb hd ( <---OS on that 1)
Barricuda 10Gb hd

Gut feelings kinda is formattage or HD's being ghey...

Still, as always any advice would be really appreciated Adam

Ps: ive got my DVD/Cd-rom drive hooked up, it isn't reading anything though...i figure lens needs a clean....*hopes* can i just use a standard cd cleaner? or do i have 2 get special Dvd 1?

[real]

blarations to the max