reformatting hard drive

wiped my 200 G hard drive out and was trying to reformat using cds that came with my computer---E-Machine T6522 (System Recovery CD/DVD Windows MS XP Media Center) and after several trys- they wiped hard drive out but seemed to get stuck and not do anything after that , so I used another OS MS XP Pro cd I had --took over 2 days to format and after another 2 days is still "preparing installation" . Is this normal?? Should I consider my hard drive toast?? The last defrag I ran didn't look good---lots of red then 'system' running at 93-99 percent cpu... Please advise...

 

I take it you mean that you were trying to re-install the o/s from the recovery disks provided?

Go to the manufacturer's site download the hdd test utility and check.

Perhaps the best way forwards once you have ascertained whether the hdd is sound is to zero fill the drive or reset the MBR. Your hdd manufacturer will also have a zero filling utility and MBRs can be zeroed with MBRWork. Maybe you will have better luck with a totally clean drive.

Good Luck