recently i moved my house and i found a maxtor hard disk in it. so i plugged it into my computer (the ppl who owned didn't want it, so don't worry i ain't stealin). my computer does detect it but when i try to format it, it formats upto 31% and then stops. i tried many many times and with no luck. anyway to resolve this? thanx in advance
While FDISK is a good enough program to get things going, there is one thing it will not do. It won't wipe the disk. Get a program like Drive Scrubber, which will create a bootable floppy disk. Boot the system using the floppy, and choose to completely wipe (7 pass as 35 will take you a long time depending on the size) the drive. Then, when you go to install an OS on it, setup will detect that it's a completely new drive. Wiping it will remove all signs of partitions, boot records, and data...setting the disk back to an 'out of the box' state.
did you ever concider that the reason the previous owners of the house left the hard drive behind is that it doesnt work?
""Use FDISK to wipe it clean of[bold] all partitions[/bold]"" @Morph416 why go to a complete erase when all you have to do is remove the existing structure and -- recreate it ? FDISK will be sufficient to permit him to re-format -- No need to nitpick at other people post !
i use fdisk all the time even for xp as i set the drives for fat32. i agree SypherTek in that the hd is probably scrap. download from maxtor their diagnostic program to see if drive is scrap.
@Jean First of all, I'm not nit picking, I am adding to the list of information available to the initial post. If there is anything wrong with the disk, simply erasing the partitions may not solve the problem. There are times when a disk will not accept a new partition, in this case wiping the drive may solve that problem.
better to have to much info than none at all. either methods works depending on the situation but most people will do the fdisk & format routine as it is quicker.
Let's not get into semantics ! you said ""It won't wipe the disk."" -- That is nit picking at the previous post -- ! You did not bother reading further as the post was talking about partitions ! Have a great day -- and rest assured that no offense was taken on my part ! Actually -- Syphertek and DDp -- have the best answer -- ! Check the drive first then maybe chuck it into trash if it dont pass the test.
Then I'd suggest that they could do this: Check the drive with Maxtor's diagnostic disk. If it works, try using FDISK to remove the partitions and start over. If that fails, try scrubbing the drive! No offense taken here either, like ddp said, the more info the merrier.
thanx a lot guys. i will do as instructed and will let u know of the progress. wishing u a prosperous new year.
Anyone taking odds on the end result? <G> What about a low level format as well, especially if there is a problem with corruption? http://www.maxtor.com/portal/site/M...tware Downloads/ATA Hard Drives&downloadID=22 Try this link as well if needed.
