need help with formatting drive

i have my cousin's laptop and i need to format the HDD.there was a bad error with the boot manager, so now whenever the HDD is in it won't let anything (cd, flash drive) boot.i was thinking of buying a sata cable, but then realized the port on my 6860 is esata.even if i put it in the second drive bay in my laptop my laptop won't boot.

is there a way to have windows recognize the drive if i put it in while in windows?

also,anyone from bestbuy, if i were to bring the drive in would they format it for me?if so what price range?i was thinking like $10-$20

 

If the HDD is in and nothing else can boot, then there is something seriously wrong with the HDD... assuming you switched the boot order in the BIOS first.

If this is the case, then for $10-20 you could buy an external USB case and format it yourself -- would be safer that way I think.

I'm guessing here that it's the boot manager loaded onto the HDD's MBR that you think got corrupted. However, I am unfamiliar with software boot managers that allow you to boot from external hardware devices; AFAIK, this is done through the BIOS. If the boot manager program really did get corrupted, then you can simply overwrite the MBR with a new copy using your cousin's Windows disk, or reinstall the boot manager program if your cousin's HDD is using a different boot manager than the standard MS one. You might not need to reformat the drive to fix it if that was the problem.

 

i have been trying to find an external case, but the cheapest i found to a 2.5" with sata was $50. i need to buy somewhere local.do you know of any software that will boot and then format after reboot?

 

Here is a SATA HDD enclosure....

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16817193034

Basically, you have a SATA drive which you want to connect to a computer through a USB port to format...correct?

 

yeah, i got it solved, i just decided to buy the cheapest one i could at best buy. it was $50, a rocket fish one.i was going to return it later on, but i am thinking about keeping it.it came with a usb cable, esata cable, two covers,power adapter, screw driver, and the screws of course.oh and a case.

but i was just going to return and buy one on ebay.

 

That rocketfish one is actually pretty good. We have 2 of them at work and they are preforming very well.

 

I don't trust e-bay myself. I went with this one:
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16817348021
as I have old PATA drives I might want to use it for as well.