xp help?

[satlover]

i've been trying to format my friend computer for his kids. but it is not working for me i guess.
it does go trough formating to a 100%, then i got this message :
set up 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 adapter documentation for more information.
You must select a different partition for windows xp.
to continue, press ENTER.
When i press enter i got this message:
An error occurred while setup was updating partition information on:
x mb disk 0 at Id 0 on atapi [MBR].
setup cannot continue. to quit setup, press F3.
that is not the original hard drive.
help please it is driving me crazy, i never had this kind of problem before. i am not going to sleep to nite because of this, lol.

[law99]

IS it a bad HD, no problems earlier?

Did you try the HD manufacturer's Tools?

Use one of these programs that erases a HD for security?