Long Story (background): I was having trouble(s) with my OS after auto-installing MS Updates (those which it could successfully complete) and after over 10 hours of phone dialog with Microsoft "support" - they suggested reformatting as the last (and only) resort. Since I wanted a 2nd hard drive anyway ... I got a 150 GB Raptor to put my OS and programs on. The Good News is: there were no problems at all loading the OS (VISTA Home Premium 64 bit) to the new HD. I then re-connected my previous 500gb Seagate. They both showed up when clicking on "Computer". The Seagate correctly showed about 350Gb free space, and when clicked on, I could see the folders/files from my previous setup. I then entered into Disk Management (where the drive showed as "Healthy", NTFS filing system, 1 partition etc...), right clicked and chose "Format..." for this drive - as I wanted all the OS (and other) data erased. That is where the "good news" ends. The format failed.
Short Story: I now have a 2nd hard drive designated as "RAW" which will not "format". I don't want to recover anything from it ... I just want to have a working drive for storage of movies, home videos, music, documents, backups, etc.. The last attempt to "Format" took about 8 hours! and left me with this:
A "Quick Format" only takes about 5 or 6 seconds and results in no change.
Any ideas?
I'm left considering two distinct possibilities: The drive is dead, or ... I'm stupid. [:mousemonkey:4] Though I suppose they may not be mutually exclusive possibilities - they each seem equally probable.
If anyone can help ... I would be forever grateful!
~Stu~
Short Story: I now have a 2nd hard drive designated as "RAW" which will not "format". I don't want to recover anything from it ... I just want to have a working drive for storage of movies, home videos, music, documents, backups, etc.. The last attempt to "Format" took about 8 hours! and left me with this:
A "Quick Format" only takes about 5 or 6 seconds and results in no change.
Any ideas?
I'm left considering two distinct possibilities: The drive is dead, or ... I'm stupid. [:mousemonkey:4] Though I suppose they may not be mutually exclusive possibilities - they each seem equally probable.
If anyone can help ... I would be forever grateful!
~Stu~