# Partition Magic 8 error 110



## bermondsey-boy (Jul 14, 2007)

I bought a 320gb hdd and in dos, gave it to Partition Magic 8 to set up 3 partitions and format them. It reported all successful and will now reboot. Put in XP disk to install and it reported no disk and C: unknown with 131000+ mb. Windows formatted and installed to the point where it states, "...successfully installed at this point......" computer will now restart.

Instead of getting on with the installation, it went into the initial setup procedure again. I tried booting from the hdd but failed. I found on the net a program called, 'Cute Partition Manager'. It seemed to do the trick, but it proved useless after more attempts at installing Windows. Partition Magic reported a, "Partition error 110" and couldn't format with an error code of 4. fdisk locks up on accessing the hdd. I was told by someone at MSY that he had the same problem once, and used a Linux Format & Installation disk which is 4gb in size. I can't find it or anything else, to get me out of this mess, short of buying programs purported to do the business. I've played around for the past three days with all sorts of attempts to solve it, but of no use at all. CMOS can't find the drive either. Now the hdd just doesn't exist.

Any help or suggestions would be greatly appreciated.


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## Elvandil (Aug 1, 2003)

PM was a mistake, first of all. Secondly, no partitioning is needed for XP setup since all the partitioning and formatting can be done during the setup procedure.

Use fdisk or PM to remove all partitions. Start XP setup and create the partition you want to install into when the option appears in setup. Format it. Leave the rest of the drive as unallocated space.

After XP is installed, run Disk Management to create any other partitions you want and format them.


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## bermondsey-boy (Jul 14, 2007)

Hi Elvandil

I took your advice by not using PM at all.

Thanks for the reply, but as I said fdisk locked up, and XP reported no disk on the computer.
Every program I had that was hdd related, couldn't read or write to the drive. So I went looking for something different.

I found a free program called 'Active Killdisk'. It did 'talk' to the hdd by writing 0's to it, which took 22 hours. Even though the drive was clean, it at least recognized the drive. I felt I was getting somewhere at last.......until I gave it to Windows.

The XP installation reported only 131,000+mb when it should have been closer to 320,000mb. Fdisk was now co-operating, but showed only 4033mb, ouch!.

So, off I went again and came across another free program by Visopsys called 'Partition Logic'. It found 305,268mb which is a whole lot better than the other lot. I split it in two partitions, formatted it and exited. While on the subject of FREE software, the latest 'Super fdisk' is free, but on installing it's a demo. So I canceled. 

Windows install was still the same. So I changed my plans and decided to put WinXP on a drive of it's own, and transfer all other data to the new drive. It's showing just under the 300,000mb, but that seems the best I can do.

Disk Manager and My Computer are happy with that, and so am I.

Thanks again
bermondsey-boy


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## dustyjay (Jan 24, 2003)

What Brand and model HDD are we talking about? If Maxtor or Seagate try this, www.seagate.com/www/en-us/support/downloads/maxtor_desktop/maxblast-eula just accept the eula and download the software then create a bootable CD.


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## bermondsey-boy (Jul 14, 2007)

Watcha Dustyjay
We're talking a Seagate Baracuda 320gb. Anyhow, it's a bit late for that now.

Thanks anyway
bermondsey-boy


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