Hard drive wont format

Forsete · Sep 1, 2015

I bought a brand new custom build gaming pc (specs below). Inside there are 2 drives. An 250GB HDD (on which the OS is installed) and 1 TB HDD.
I just can't get the HDD to work. My MoBo recognizes the drive but in windows i can't format it, which means i can't use it either.
When I tried an old drive of another pc which already has been formatted, it work perfectly fine.

Any suggestions?

Specs:
CPU: i5 4690k
GPU: MSI Geforce GTX 970 Gaming 4GB DDR5
Motherbaord: MSI B85-G43 gaming
Ram: 8GB at 1333 Mhz
OS: Windows 10
SSD: Samsung EVO 250GB SSD
HDD: Western Digital Blue 1 TB HDD
PSU: 600W

D_Know_WD · Sep 1, 2015

Hi there Forsete,

Sorry that you have some issues with your WD drive.

Do you get some kind of error message?
As the drive is brand new, you need to go to Disk Management and initialize it first.

Here's how: http://products.wdc.com/support/kb.ashx?id=21dYOx

Cheers,
D_Know_WD

Forsete · Sep 1, 2015

I did intialize it. I forgot to put that into the thread. And i did get an error message when i tried to do a quick format. I dont know what the message is in english because my windows is Dutch but in english it would be something like "Can't compleet formatting".

Thank you for your time.

Shaun o · Sep 1, 2015

Put simply if you are trying to format the drive with the windows install currently on it, it will refuse to format.
Because once it is use by windows it`s protected from doing so. The same also applies if there is a program installed on the 1Tb drive currently in use by windows OS.

To format the drive you would have to use a windows install Dvd and boot from it, format the 1Tb drive, then exit or quit the install of windows, that would work fine.

In windows 10 click on start, in the search box type: Disk man
from the search results bar to the left, select : Create and format hard disk partitions.

A window will open.
In the window it will show all of the drives connected to your motherboard.
Find the 1Tb drive in the list at the bottom of the new open window.
Right click on the section where it lists the 1Tb drive and select mark as active option.
Then right click again and select format from the pull down menu.

The drive should now format.

It may be the other way around though, format the drive, then mark as active. Brain is a bit fuzzy this morning Lol.

It should then show up in my computer of windows 10 along with a drive letter assignment of the letters D: or E:.
ok.

Post back let me know if it worked for you Forsete ok.

D_Know_WD · Sep 1, 2015

That is strange.
You can test the drive with WD's Data Lifeguard Diagnostic tool and see whether there is something wrong with it: http://products.wdc.com/support/kb.ashx?id=71g7oH

In case the drive fails the tests, I guess you may need to contact the place where you got it from and eventually RMA it.

Also, you can try something simple as just attaching the drive with different cables to a different SATA port.

Let me know how this goes,
D_Know_WD

Forsete · Sep 2, 2015

D_Know_WD :

I did try that tool and the drive passed the test.

I also tried different SATA cables or different SATA ports, no result.

D_Know_WD · Sep 2, 2015

You can try writing zeros on the drive(full erase) with the very same tool(DLG).
If the issue persists, you can boot up Ubuntu from either a flash drive or a CD, and try to format the drive. This sometimes seems to help when users can't format their drives in Windows.

Check these out:
http://www.tomshardware.co.uk/forum/267999-32-recover-data-mode
http://askubuntu.com/questions/68809/how-to-format-a-usb-or-external-drive

Hope this will help,
D_Know_WD

Shaun o · Sep 2, 2015

Try the solution using disk manager, then if the drive is reporting no errors using the WD software.
A drive has to be formatted before you connect it to your system as a secondary drive or will not show in windows.
You need to run Disk man to format and prep the drive so windows can utilize it first. it needs to know what it is dealing with by format and the drive flags need to be set to online in windows.

You do all of this through windows Disk manager like I told you, but you ignored the post.
oh well I did try to help you. Your choice to ignore the post I guess.

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