Originally Posted by themerchant
I just built a new computer with my friend, I used a harddrive from my old computer (but the harddrive was new). I had windows xp proffesional & freespire (linux) on it. Since it they had problems (specifically windows) I knew I had to reiinstall both, so I used a software I had to delete their partitions. Then I created new ones for windows & linux (mind you, I've done windows & linux installation dozens of times), and installed windows, loaded it and it seemed fine. Then, I installed linux. When I wanted to go back to windows, it said there was an error, something about harddrive overload. So, for the next few ours I spent doing installations, harddrive wipes, partitions to get this all fixed. Suddenly my harddrive was split in to. (My harddrive is 250 gb, I think maxtor). Yes, 3 pieces of software (specifically freespire, and windows xp installation things), thought that one harddrive was 2 HARDDRIVES (not partitions either), one which was 230 gb, one which 3 gb (mind you, they also said the 3gb one was unusable). I think there might be something relating to a masterboot record and all of this, anyway. Another piece of software (ultimate boot disk) saw it as 250 gb harddrive though. So I tried wiping and reinstalling, I came to a point that for some reason windows xp woulwdn't install, it said something about "cycle" and that the disc might be scratched (tho it wasn't too scratched), and freespire, after I installed it, it wouldn't boot at all. The computer would load and just stay as a blinking _ on the screen. So I thought maybe there is a part of this harddrive which won't let me touch which is the problem, if the wipe the harddrive completely clean, I'll be fine, so I looked for my Dariks Boot and Nuke. I put it in, and it came to the screen where it tells you about choices and if you want to autonuke, and quickly passed it, said something about loading, and said it found a floppy drive, and ended in checking for a floppy disk ( I don't have a floppy drive in this pc). So I decided to go back to a partitioner on one of my linux disks, and blam, my hardrive was 30 gb in total!!!!! Yes, total size, it said 30 gb! WTH! I checked the ultimate boot disk drive tools and they too said 30 gb!
Anyone know what the heck is going on or any fixes? I've been at this computer for at least 11 hours, first everything seemed fine, I thought it was a regular problem, little by little it got worse and worse!
