Please help!!!!!
I cannot format my drive C:
i try to format for d: and have been succesful in the past but now when i try i cannot do it
it says invalid command
before i had this trouble i was defraging for about a day then i came home from work and there was a blue screen that said "unable to write to drive c:" and then i hit enter then a black screen.
so i did a hard reset and it looked like it was going fine until the words Press F1 to retry boot, or F2 for setup.
i am in trouble and i am despreate
please help!!!!!!!

Are you using a Windows ME disk or an OEM Recovery Disk?

Do you know the manufacturer of the hard drive? They would have a diagnostic to test the drive.

A list here: http://www.tacktech.com/display.cfm?ttid=287

I am using a windows ME disk which i have used in the past.
when i try to format it says invalid drive specified
it won't even boot from c: for me to test the drive
i don't know but i think shes done for unless you have any other ideas
much appreciated

I would find out the make of the drive & run the diagnostic boot floppy from A:>.

Also booting issues can be quite complex. Do you ever get any errors from the BIOS?

Or do all your start-ups go smoothly? Sometimes boot issues arise from the BIOS.

If you have the diagnostic floppy or any other bootable floppy you can use it to check the bootability of the motherboard.

See if you can get anything to boot from a floppy.

Thank you for your hard work in trying to help me
I have determined with that my hard drive is inaccesable and need a new one
it was not the answer that i was looking for but that will have to do
agan thank you and i will tell everyone with a problem with their computer to visit this website

I don't know whether any of this will be any good to you, but perhaps it's not too late.

First of all, formatting the C: drive is a bit drastic. We all do it occasionally, but most problems can be sorted without the need for a complete reinstall.

If you can't boot from a floppy, have you checked that the A: drive comes before C: in the BIOS sequence?

If the boot floppy is corrupted, you'll find a download link on page 3 of my site, known as "Barney's Place". This is my first post on D-A-L, so in case the link doesn't appear automatically, here's the URL

http://myweb.tiscali.co.uk/lesgrotte/index.html

All that said, I had a similar problem a while ago. I thought my PC was on the way out. I let it cool down for an hour or so, then I was finally able to get into Windows. I ran Scandisk, which fixed an error in the boot sector, since when everything's been ok, so don't rush out and buy a new drive just yet. It could just be a simple file error, as in my case.

A tip. Before running Scandisk on drive C: I use "EndItAll" (freeware). If you need it, you'll find a link on page 4 of "Barney's Place".

Hope that helps.

Philbruner, don't chuck the drive out just yet (even if you've already bought a new one). You might find that the drive is inaccessible because the BIOS (the underlying system that connects up all your hardware before the system boots up) has just lost track of the hard drive settings. Try the links in my signature to articles I've written about getting the BIOS to detect your drives.