Other External products

[tosh007]

I have bought a new 500gb external 2.5" hard drive - Story Station  ST950017 AS -  When I installed iot for the first time it installed driver OK & recognised the HD (using win 7 starter).  I didn't know you had to format a new HD (& still unsure really) thought they always come ready formatted.  any way I immediately started to copy some films from my internal hard drive to the external.  However when I tried to play one of the films, I got a message saying the drive needs to be formatted do I want to do it now...so said yes (I wasn't bothered about losing anything I'd just put on it as could easily do it again & chose NTSF

After a few minutes said windows couldn't complete the format...to cut a long story short kept trying different ways to format it using disk management I commands such as    format D: /u (but abandoned this after 3 hours as it only got to 3%)...

Since this my drive just now says 'local drive' instead of the name & when I rt click on properties it says both avaialble & used space is 0 bytes....plus it now shows in disk management as  RAW...when it was FAT32

I am not even able to check the disk using     chkdsk d: /f r  as it says cant check RAW

Obviously this is brand new & could return it to where I bought it from & wait to see what they say about replacing it but if I caould get it to work that would be great as I need it urgently & it would probsably take several weeks to ort out......so am hoping one of you technical guys can help....maybe someone has had a similar problem & solved it.  Incidentally I have not used any of samsungs software to try to format

cheers in advance

[tosh007]

Further developments to the above....... think I've now made matters

clutching at straws & willing to try anything I read an article about Low Level Formatting, so downloaded the tool ticked preform quick wipe (remove partition & MBR)  & now itw'a bigger problem:

Disc is recognised under disc management but it's 'unallocated' & doesn't have a letter asigned to it - just disc 1

Under my computer - not listed

Under devise manager - listed & says 'working properly'

All I want to do is get it formatted & woking, not bothered about any data loss

Please help !!

[kenji57]

Hi tosh007. You didn't mention what tool you downloaded, but anyway it sounds like you have wiped the partition table, but that's OK. You just have to create a partition and format the drive.

In disk management, if you right click in the unallocated space do you get an option to create New Simple Volume ?

for a 500GB drive, MBR partition is OK (GUID is only important for bigger than 2TB).

Only chose FAT32 if you  want PS3 or XBox or Android version pre-3.2 devices to be able to read the drive otherwise NTFS is OK

I think from memory Win 7 has trouble formatting large drives with FAT32 and the standard format command just starts and doesn't finish. I used a tool call SwissKnife to format a 100GB drive to use with Android 3.0 (some time ago).

[tosh007]

Created new simple volume & went from 'unallocated' to RAW. & also assigned the letter  S     Then when back to being recognised under my computer (but only as local disc).  But it still will not let me format...just says windows unable to complete format successfully.  Also tried on another laptop running Vista.  The tool I used to do a low level format was HDDLLF.  I also downloaded Samsungs format utility (V1.4) but was unable to do anything because it did not see my hard drive (said something like no device attached)

All I want to do is format to NTFS ( not bothered about losing any data) with one simple partition (or is is better to have more than one partition).  Looks like I'm gonna have to try a third party program to attenpt a format (though | read it's always better to use the one recommended for your make of hard drive, that's why went for the Samsung one but just can't use it due to non-recognition.  Any suggestions as to how to get it formatted...what about swiss knife.  I've spent pretty much all weekend on this & going nuts !!

[kenji57]

When you created the new simple volume on step 3 of the wizard Format Partition you selected format this volume with the following settings and it didn't format? strange.

You shouldn't need a 3rd party tool if you want to format in NTFS. Win7 Disk manager should be all you need.

But out of curiosity I reinstalled Swissknife to delete the partition off my old Maxtor 100GB. Win7 says it has compatibility issues but it runs fine. 

[tosh007]

I went to dowload swiss knife but it said the program has known compatlility issues with win7 & vista do I did not continue to instal it.  I downloaded Aomei Partition Assistant home editiion but got 'Failed romat NTFS due to too many bad clusters' (but it's a brand new hard drive)

So you say swissknife seems ok with your win7 (mines the start edition)...might try this but it's not looking good

I'm wondering if when I first got it & copied some films, etc over could I have had a corrupt file (unknowingly) & hence the start of the problem....because as soon as i tried to open something up that I'd just copied it said I needed to fromat the drive first

Started a 'check partition' with the 'partition assistant' program...but it was taking ages however it did show 'bad sectors'

So where now??

[kenji57]

You can try Seagate Seatools diagnostic software to see if there is a problem with the drive 

read here http://knowledge.seagate.com/articles/en_US/FAQ/202435en?popup=true

it says it might repair bad sectors with checkdisk

download here http://www.seagate.com/support/downloads/seatools/#

[tosh007]

As we speak I'm having another go at formatting with Aomei PA....However, although it showing as 'formatting' don't actually think it will complete.  It's now been running for an hour, been stuck on 5% for the past 45 mins & currently says  326 bad sectors found so far while this partition is being formatted

I did try to run a check on the hard drive both via command & in disc management but it said 'check cannot be performed on RAW'

I know I need something which will repair the bad sectors before formating again or a program which will format even with bad sectors

Incidentally if I'm lucky enough to get it formatted, is it likely I'll just be a problematic hard drive with all these bad sectors (what are they anyway) or will it be ok once formatted

cheers

[kenji57]

Ok you shouldn't have to format a new drive. The drive must have been formatted originally otherwise you wouldn't have been able to copy the movie files in the first place. Maybe these files were corrupted or there was a serious glitch (like knocking the drive off the desk) during writing or the bad sectors were on the disc from the start. Usually the drive management software will identify and map around bad sectors automatically so you don't know they exist although every drive probably has some bad sectors. 

I think I'd try Seatools diagnostic software. Seagate should know their own drives best, but good luck with aomei. If that works out with formatting I'd still run Seatools diagnostic to check the drive. There could be hard errors that are going to give you grief into the future.

[tosh007]

Will give Seagate diagnostic tools a go then (Samsung is now Seagate...right ??)

Would you abandon Aomei then....currently still on 5% with 480 bad sectors found & been running 1hr 45 mins

I'm inclined to believe it's not formatting at all & will be stuck at 5% forever but the very fact that the hard drive is blinking away & more & more bad sectors are being found also makes me thin it's doing something

Would you leave it (but for how long) to see if it get over these bad sectors & contiues to format or would you cancel the format.

I have emailed Seagate but not had a response yet.

thanks

[kenji57]

Missed the bit about it being a samsung drive, but yes Seagate seems to have taken over samsung drives. There are a couple of utilities specifically for samsung drives that might work. Up to you whether to leave aomei working a bit longer or not, but I think you'd have to run some diagnostics anyway to see what the problem with the drive is before you load all your files onto it and have it crash again.

http://www.seagate.com/support/external-hard-drives/desktop-hard-drives/story-series/samsung-format-... 

http://www.seagate.com/support/internal-hard-drives/laptop-hard-drives/spinpoint-m-series/samsung-ad...

[tosh007]

already tried the Samsung Format utility but it didn't recogmise the har drive...said something like 'No device detected'  so wan't able to perform the format.

But I haven't tried the Advanced format Utility (your 2nd link) so will try that but if it doesn't recognise the drive then I won't be able to do it.

Aomei still on 5% -   720 bad sectors found - now been running for 2.5 hrs - doubt it's gonna format it

Incidentally in the Amoei it says

Capacity 465.76 GB     used space 79 MB      free space  465.68

I thought when I did the low level format I'd have wiped the drive of all data but it's saying 79 MB used space, so does that mean there's still something left on there & that's causing it not to format??