Link to home
Start Free TrialLog in
Avatar of calvert317
calvert317Flag for United States of America

asked on

unable to format 1.5 T HD as NTFS. Show raw

Tried to format new sata HD using Vista disk management. Format got to 73% and just stuck there for an hour.  Would not cancel.  So I rebooted and reopened disk management.  Then New drive showed as (M:) 1397.26 GB RAW Healthy primary partition. I give the volume a name and select quick format.  disk management says it is formatting and then  goes back to Raw description noted above.  error message says "windows was unable to format the disk".  this happens if I try to format as one huge partition, and if I try to dormat only 50 gigs of it. how do I troubleshoot.  This HD was formatted with ntfs and ran windows 7 RC before, so I don't think it's a hardware issue. It is spinning.  Trobleshoot steps?  thanks
ASKER CERTIFIED SOLUTION
Avatar of _
_
Flag of Bahamas image

Link to home
membership
This solution is only available to members.
To access this solution, you must be a member of Experts Exchange.
Start Free Trial
added note:
I prefer KillDisk, it's usually faster than the tools from the disk maker.
Avatar of nobus
i would test the disk, it looks BAD   -->  error message says "windows was unable to format the disk".
use the diag you need from :  http://www.tacktech.com/display.cfm?ttid=287
SOLUTION
Link to home
membership
This solution is only available to members.
To access this solution, you must be a member of Experts Exchange.
Start Free Trial
Avatar of calvert317

ASKER

UPDATE: Thanks for the replies.  As per Coral47, right now I'm writing zeros to the disc with acronis disc cleaner that I have on hand.  (takes 12 - 13 hours on this big drive.) in case the problem is a lingering bit of Windows 7.  Then I'll try to  useagain.  Before this, I put the new drive on another PC (running XP) and it formatted fine.  Go figure.  But when I tried to use this same disk as a target for a cloning procedure the Clone program (TrueImage) said it had sectors it could not read.  Chkdsk says the disk is fine.  Does that mean the disk IS good OR that it might not be bad? Thanks to Nobus and Noxcho I see that CHKDSK utility often misses unreliable disk sectors so I will run one of the other utilities (probaby SeaTools for Windows v1.1.1.0 (12.15.2008)) if  this disk cleaning does not do the trick.  PS this is not a RAIDed config.  
. To be continued.......
SOLUTION
Link to home
membership
This solution is only available to members.
To access this solution, you must be a member of Experts Exchange.
Start Free Trial
Yeah, seagate should do the work. I have proved many times that Microsoft CHKDSK command missed bad sectors and only using HDD vendor made utilities could find the real problem.
To those who are helping: Please keep this question open. I am away from my computer for 9 days on business and have not had time to complete all suggestions.  Thanks
No problem.
After I wrote zeros to drive,   SeaTools long generic test said the drive passed.  The problem seems to have been with the Acronis cloning program.  It would only work when run from the bootable rescue disc that I created from Acronis download.  Error messages seem to have been from some kind of an acronis  hangup, and were not an accurate description of the problem.  Now I have new issues, but i will start a new question for them.  thanks.  Olivia
Thank you much.   : )

>> Now I have new issues

bummer.