Setup was unable to format the partition. the disk may be damaged.

Dear all

I have just got a new amd system yesterday and try to install windows with it.
when i try installing windows xp32 or 64 i'll get a msg

> setup was unable to format the partition. the disk may be damaged.
>
> make sure the drive is switched on and properly connected
> to your computer. if the disk is a scsi disk, make sure your scsi
> devices are properly terminated. consult your computer manual or
> scsi adapter documentation for more information
>
> you must select a different partition for windows xp.
> to continue, press enter.

after the " - format the partition using the ntfs file system (quick)" screen
i've try both quick and slow format and both will run to 100 % then it just jump to the
> setup was unable....
screen.

and i'll get a different msg when i try to install vista 32 black or vista 64.

> install windows
> windows setup could not reinitialize the deployment engine. to install windows,
> restart the installation.

after the

>where do you want to install windows?
>disk 0 partition 1

screen

i have 3 sata drive and 1 ide drive. i have try to install windows on each of them but end up with the same msg.
i have also trying to install the xp with only 1x 2gb ram but end up with same msg too.
i have try with another windows install cd/dvd to install the system but end up with the same msg.
i have try to change the ide cable or even the sata cable but didn't help.
i have try formatting all drive from the xp cd or vista cd from delete and create new partition and end up with same msg
i did when to bios and make sure i'm not on Raid mode.


here are my computer setting.

mobo - Gigabyte GA-MA785GM-US2H Socket AM3 AMD 785G
cpu - AMD Phenom II X3 705e (65W) Triple-Core Socket AM3
ram - 2 x 2gb adata 1066 ddr2
cpu cooling - AVC ESP Cooler
hdd - 1 x 1tb sata, 1 x 250gb sata, 1 x 320 gb sata, and 1 x 40gb ide
psu - 550 W

thank you all for reading this and trying to help.

Josh

Well...first off your disk may very well be damaged. Its a possibility. What I would do is I would take out your drive, connect it as a slave drive to a different computer and format it there aswell as do a Check Disk. For reason your bootable CD OS is not doing well with it so lets first try to make another computer do the work for it. Connect it to the other PC, right click and select format and do a (FULL) format. Then do a check disk and then try to connect it back to your old PC and install OS. If this doesn't work then this leaves that either your CD is bad or your hard drive is bad

Thank you for all the help and i have just find out what was the wrong with the computer. It was the motherboard. after changing the motherboard every thing just start working and vista 32 black install like it always would.

Thanks for all the help every one. and hope if anyone that have the same problem now have another way of fixing it

Thank you all once more

Josh

http://sourceforge.net/projects/gp [...] o/download

I use Gparted myself to format and partition drives. It is way quicker than Windows. I partitioned and formatted a 1TB drive in less then 10 minutes. Plus, it's a live CD that you can use anywhere.

I was having the exact same problem. I was able to install Win98se with no problem but any time that I attempted to install Win2k or XP it would not install. I had fdisk'd it reformatted it and after about 8 hrs of messing with it , I changed my video card, no further problems. I was using a SIS 128 mb graphics card, changed to a Nvidia 32mb installed XP then changed the card. Works fine.