HD Probs with Vista and XP Dual Boot

[Moron]

Ok I shall try to explain this as clearly as possible.

I current run XP and Vista on dual boot, with XP on 1 hard drive which is fine. Vista is on my 500gig hard drive split into 30gig for vista and 470 for storage.

Week or so ago the 470 storage went missing when I was in vista but was fine when i was in XP.

When in xp and running partition magic the 500gig hard drive (both vista and storage partions) come up as 'BAD'.

I've tried reformatting the storage from vista and the vista software says error.....

tried reformation the Storage from XP and using the windows software it goes to the end then says formatting failed.

Fianlly tried formatting the entire hard drive (wiping the Vista partition) and partition magic requires a reboot and on reboot says error also and can't format?



I'm now in the situtation where the 470 storage is un accessable and unformatable in both vista and xp, with the vista partition reading as 'BAD' from partition magic in xp.





Any ideas, i've ran error checking on vista from xp and seemed ok. I've also tried WD software to format the drive but again error. Gonna run a deep scan using WD software tonight as it takes over 2 hours.

I don't really mind loosing Vista as i'll start from scratch, but have no idea how to do it. My idea was to boot from the Vista CD and format the entire drive before its installed on it.

final note is that i thought the actual HD might be borked, any way to properly test it??

[glc]

Use the WD software or DBAN to write zeros to the drive. Then start fresh, partition it, and run the WD diags to test it.

[Moron]

Wasn't sure what the zero's thing did but will deffo do it now after i do a deep scan tonight and see what happens.

thanks for the reply and will post back for more info if the scan reveals anything.

[glc]

Writing zeros returns the drive to factory condition - totally blank and unformatted.