Sata drive formatting problem

Hi I'm using an old Dell dimension 2300 as a fileserver and I've
recently bought a new 1.5TB sata hard drive for it along with a PCI
3port SATA adapter (the motherboard only has IDE ports by default).

Anyway, I've done the install and there are no problems with drivers
or anything and I can see the drive in Disk Managment.
However I cannot format the drive. When I try windows (XP) spits back
"the format did not complete successfully." with no explanation.

Anyone got any ideas why this might be happening??

Thanks,
Ciarán

"cronoklee" wrote in message
...
Hi I'm using an old Dell dimension 2300 as a fileserver and I've
recently bought a new 1.5TB sata hard drive for it along with a PCI
3port SATA adapter (the motherboard only has IDE ports by default).

Anyway, I've done the install and there are no problems with drivers
or anything and I can see the drive in Disk Managment.
However I cannot format the drive. When I try windows (XP) spits back
"the format did not complete successfully." with no explanation.

Anyone got any ideas why this might be happening??

Thanks,
Ciarán

First thing that comes to mind is that you have XP service packs updated to
3. Second thing is if you created a new partition on the drive first and
then went to formating. Third is (if the previous thoughts aren't helpful)
that the drivemaker for your new disk may have a utility that will partition
the drive.

--
Jan Alter

On Mar 30, 3:27 pm, cronoklee wrote:
Hi I'm using an old Dell dimension 2300 as a fileserver and I've
recently bought a new 1.5TB sata hard drive for it along with a PCI
3port SATA adapter (the motherboard only has IDE ports by default).

Anyway, I've done the install and there are no problems with drivers
or anything and I can see the drive in Disk Managment.
However I cannot format the drive. When I try windows (XP) spits back
"the format did not complete successfully." with no explanation.

Anyone got any ideas why this might be happening??

Thanks,
Ciarán

Not sure what's up with that -- you got yourself one of them new-
fangled drives with the new new industry FAT for Windows7? They
require backwardly compatible steps to run on XP.

On 3/30/2010 5:38 PM, Flasherly wrote:
On Mar 30, 3:27 pm, wrote:
Hi I'm using an old Dell dimension 2300 as a fileserver and I've
recently bought a new 1.5TB sata hard drive for it along with a PCI
3port SATA adapter (the motherboard only has IDE ports by default).

Anyway, I've done the install and there are no problems with drivers
or anything and I can see the drive in Disk Managment.
However I cannot format the drive. When I try windows (XP) spits back
"the format did not complete successfully." with no explanation.

Anyone got any ideas why this might be happening??

Thanks,
Ciarán

Not sure what's up with that -- you got yourself one of them new-
fangled drives with the new new industry FAT for Windows7? They
require backwardly compatible steps to run on XP.

Both XP and W7 use NTFS, don't they?
Do you have a link to read about that information?

cronoklee wrote:

I can see the drive in Disk Managment.

What happens during the disk initialization phase?

However I cannot format the drive.

You didn't give enough details starting with disk management
initialization sequence.

--
Mike Easter

On 31 Mar, 00:35, Mike Easter wrote:
cronokleewrote:
I can see the drive in Disk Managment.

What happens during the disk initialization phase?

However I cannot format the drive.

You didn't give enough details starting with disk management
initialization sequence.

--
Mike Easter



Hi All, thanks for the replies on this. I'm still not sure what the
problem was but I've managed to get the drive formatted using This
partition manager:
http://www.partition-tool.com/personal.htm

It took about 1 mintue and did it first time. Now why couldn't windows
do that eh?

Thanks again for the prompt help!
Ciarán

On Mar 30, 5:58 pm, TVeblen wrote:
On 3/30/2010 5:38 PM, Flasherly wrote:



On Mar 30, 3:27 pm, wrote:
Hi I'm using an old Dell dimension 2300 as a fileserver and I've
recently bought a new 1.5TB sata hard drive for it along with a PCI
3port SATA adapter (the motherboard only has IDE ports by default).

Anyway, I've done the install and there are no problems with drivers
or anything and I can see the drive in Disk Managment.
However I cannot format the drive. When I try windows (XP) spits back
"the format did not complete successfully." with no explanation.

Anyone got any ideas why this might be happening??

Thanks,
Ciar n

Not sure what's up with that -- you got yourself one of them new-
fangled drives with the new new industry FAT for Windows7? They
require backwardly compatible steps to run on XP.

Both XP and W7 use NTFS, don't they?
Do you have a link to read about that information?

This stuff is different than XP. Look over on newegg at WD 1.5 or 2
-- lots of discussion. Do it 2 ways for XP, a jumper or their drive
software. W7 supports it out of the box

cronoklee wrote:
On 31 Mar, 00:35, Mike Easter wrote:
cronokleewrote:
I can see the drive in Disk Managment.
What happens during the disk initialization phase?

However I cannot format the drive.
You didn't give enough details starting with disk management
initialization sequence.

--
Mike Easter



Hi All, thanks for the replies on this. I'm still not sure what the
problem was but I've managed to get the drive formatted using This
partition manager:
http://www.partition-tool.com/personal.htm

It took about 1 mintue and did it first time. Now why couldn't windows
do that eh?

Thanks again for the prompt help!
Ciarán

Were you attempting to format FAT32 ?

If so, WinXP has a 32GB limit. But that isn't a technical limit,
it is political. With third party utilities, you could format
a 2TB disk to a single FAT32 partition.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fat32#FAT32

This is what I use for FAT32.

http://www.ridgecrop.demon.co.uk/ind...at32format.htm

For NTFS, Windows doesn't impose any artificial limits there.

*******

Another article you might read, is the one about the new
4KB sector hard drives. Apparently, all the drives, regardless
of size, will be using 4KB sectors, as there is an industry wide
agreement now to that effect. Western Digital is one of the first
to deliver these, and they say "Advanced Format" on the label on
the drive.

http://www.anandtech.com/show/2888

Paul

On 3/31/2010 3:31 AM, Paul wrote:
cronoklee wrote:
On 31 Mar, 00:35, Mike Easter wrote:
cronokleewrote:
I can see the drive in Disk Managment.
What happens during the disk initialization phase?

However I cannot format the drive.
You didn't give enough details starting with disk management
initialization sequence.

--
Mike Easter



Hi All, thanks for the replies on this. I'm still not sure what the
problem was but I've managed to get the drive formatted using This
partition manager:
http://www.partition-tool.com/personal.htm

It took about 1 mintue and did it first time. Now why couldn't windows
do that eh?

Thanks again for the prompt help!
Ciarán

Were you attempting to format FAT32 ?

If so, WinXP has a 32GB limit. But that isn't a technical limit,
it is political. With third party utilities, you could format
a 2TB disk to a single FAT32 partition.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fat32#FAT32

This is what I use for FAT32.

http://www.ridgecrop.demon.co.uk/ind...at32format.htm

For NTFS, Windows doesn't impose any artificial limits there.

*******

Another article you might read, is the one about the new
4KB sector hard drives. Apparently, all the drives, regardless
of size, will be using 4KB sectors, as there is an industry wide
agreement now to that effect. Western Digital is one of the first
to deliver these, and they say "Advanced Format" on the label on
the drive.

http://www.anandtech.com/show/2888

Paul

Hey Paul - do you know if you can still format these drives 64KB for video?

On 3/30/2010 11:11 PM, Flasherly wrote:
On Mar 30, 5:58 pm, wrote:
On 3/30/2010 5:38 PM, Flasherly wrote:



On Mar 30, 3:27 pm, wrote:
Hi I'm using an old Dell dimension 2300 as a fileserver and I've
recently bought a new 1.5TB sata hard drive for it along with a PCI
3port SATA adapter (the motherboard only has IDE ports by default).

Anyway, I've done the install and there are no problems with drivers
or anything and I can see the drive in Disk Managment.
However I cannot format the drive. When I try windows (XP) spits back
"the format did not complete successfully." with no explanation.

Anyone got any ideas why this might be happening??

Thanks,
Ciar n

Not sure what's up with that -- you got yourself one of them new-
fangled drives with the new new industry FAT for Windows7? They
require backwardly compatible steps to run on XP.

Both XP and W7 use NTFS, don't they?
Do you have a link to read about that information?

This stuff is different than XP. Look over on newegg at WD 1.5 or 2
-- lots of discussion. Do it 2 ways for XP, a jumper or their drive
software. W7 supports it out of the box

Jeez- you shut your eyes for a minute and everything changes....

This is a better read than the reviews:
http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/...ctor,2554.html

Just another rule for builders to know!