Sata Hard Drive Problems

Dave450

Dave450

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Dave
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Hi,
I have a WD 160gb sata hard drive. Its playing up and just cant get my head around it.

In Control Panel>Admin Tools>Computer Management then Disk Management I can see the drive, I go to format it, and it fails to complete every time. Once it fails, I cannot see the drive and need to restart in order to see it again.

Is the drive dead? Is there any programs that can help restore the drive?

Thanks in advance

Dave
 
neil_g said:
sounds a little odd..

first (and easiest) suggestion would be to replace the sata cable, they are surprisingly brittle and dont like being hurrassed into position etc.
Click to expand...

:plus1:
 
ok i replaced the cable, went to format the hard drive, and then it disappeared out of the

Control Panel>Admin Tools>Computer Management then Disk Management

although it didnt tell me it failed this time,

off to restart again and see what it brings up.

running vista if this helps in problem solving
 
chrisgeary said:
check the event viewer/system log.. any messages logged there?

Are you attempting a full or quick format?
Click to expand...

I've tried both full and quick format....also tried the format you get when you install xp (ie i was going to let it format the drive but then cancel the install) all failed.

I currently can see the drive, but windows needs to format it before it is usable.

No messages in the event viewer :(
 
neil_g said:
can you try a different sata port on the motherboard and/or try it in another computer?
Click to expand...


cant do the other computer option but I have tried it in another port - same outcome.

It was working this morning, but it was VERY VERY slow at writing data to the disc. Silly me thought a format would be the answer, now currently an unusable drive :(
 
neil_g said:
sounds like it might be toasted then.. at least if you planned to format it you had all the data off it?
Click to expand...

yes all the data is off it luckily!! :) just a shame its died :(
 
You could try deleting the partition then make new partition and then reformat, but it does sound like it,s on it's way out.
 
try chkdsk -r 'ing it, might flag up some problems and fix them... but if not, sounds like a dodgy drive in that case.. or at least not trustworthy of keeping as a 'normal' drive - bash it in a £5 enclosure from ebay and use it for shuttling stuff around, but other than that, I wouldn't trust it as far as I could throw it :p
 
Flossyrockstar said:
You could try deleting the partition then make new partition and then reformat, but it does sound like it,s on it's way out.
Click to expand...

Been there, done that :(

a nice door stop it looks like now :bonk:
 
neil_g said:
what drive was it out of interest and how old? you could try chkdsk'ing it but once a drive starts failing its a bit of a slippery slope.
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Got it off my father who doesnt use it anymore. Did work, but was slow writing to disk (copying off disc was ok)

how do i chkdsk it in dos prompt? cant remember that far back in computer times lol
 
last thing you can try is creating a smaller partition and see if it will format. if it does, then you know you have a bad area on the disk somewhere.

as drives are so cheap, i would write it off and replace it. no sense trying to make a failing disk work.
 
chrisgeary said:
last thing you can try is creating a smaller partition and see if it will format. if it does, then you know you have a bad area on the disk somewhere.

as drives are so cheap, i would write it off and replace it. no sense trying to make a failing disk work.
Click to expand...


yeah I had come to that conclusion, just me being bored on a monday afternoon :)

might try the smaller partition, then throw it away!!
 
See if it still cover by their warranty and then RMA it and get a replacement. Out of interest have you tried WD Tools - free download from their website. WD drives used to carry a 5yr warranty depending on model.
 
what you trying to format it as ? FAT, FAT32, NTFS... ?
 
try start in safe mode and look in your biose and see what you can do in safe mode it will be slow . it should show up
 
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