Error when I try to format my Hard Drive.

[ohuett]

I have a Win98 SE machine that is having alot of issues. I want to just format the hard drive and reload Win98 and all the other software. I boot from the floppy w/a Win98 boot disk and type "format c:". It starts to format and then when it gets to about 85%, I get this error..."An internal stack overflow has caused this session to be halted. Change the STACKS setting in your config.sys file, and then try again." So I edit the stacks line in my config.sys file on my boot disk to read "stacks=64,512" and change my files=60 and buffers=40.(I got this from Microsoft's Knowledge Base...Article Q145799-How to Troubleshoot Windows Internal Stack Overflow Error Messages) I try to format again, same error message. I try taking out my network card and sound card(reference the Microsoft article) and tried formatting again...same error message. Has anyone ever had this problem? If so, what fixed it? Thanks for any help.

 

[dxd]

Have you tried to boot to safe mode command prompt only with the bootdisk and then using "format c: /u".

Is the drive already formatted with a file system or is it a newly created partition? If it is already formatted, try "format c: /q /u".

If it still fails, try running fdisk and delete and recreate the partition(s) and then attempt another format.

If available, try another boot disk.
Doug
dxd_2000@yahoo.com

 

[ohuett]

The drive was already formatted(FAT32) but I deleted the old partition and re-created a new one. I tried to format the HDD after creating the new partition but got same error message. What do the switches mean after format.../q and /u? I have tried another boot disk and I get the same message. I will delete the partition and re-create it...and try to format it again. I'll let you know what happens. Thanks for your input...any more thoughts?

 

[butchrecon]

/q is quick
/u is unconditional (spelling)

If you fdisk and try to format again and get the same problem you may need to low level format the drive. Who makes the drive? James Collins
Field Service Engineer
A+, MCP

email: butchrecon@skyenet.net

Please let us (Tek-tips members) know if the solutions we provide are helpful to you. Not only do they help you but they may help others.

 

[ohuett]

Made by Samsung...what is low-level formatting?

 

[butchrecon]

There are two ways to format a disk. The first way involves the creation of the actual structures on the surface of the media that are used to hold the data. This means recording the tracks and marking the start of each sector on each track. This is called low-level formatting, and sometimes is called "true formatting" since it is actually recording the format that will be used to store information on the disk.

The second formatting way is high-level formatting. This is the process of creating the disk's logical structures such as the file allocation table and root directory. The high-level format uses the structures created by the low-level format to prepare the disk to hold files using the chosen file system.

James Collins
Field Service Engineer
A+, MCP

email: butchrecon@skyenet.net

Please let us (Tek-tips members) know if the solutions we provide are helpful to you. Not only do they help you but they may help others.

 

[butchrecon]

For a hard disk, there is an intermediate task that is performed between the two formatting steps: partitioning. For this reason, combined with the incredible complexity of modern hard disks, they are low-level formatted by the manufacturer, and high-level formatting is done by the DOS FORMAT command (or equivalent). Floppy disks require no intermediate step, and due to their relative simplicity, they are both low-level and high-level formatted at the same time by default when you use the FORMAT command.

James Collins
Field Service Engineer
A+, MCP

email: butchrecon@skyenet.net

Please let us (Tek-tips members) know if the solutions we provide are helpful to you. Not only do they help you but they may help others.