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Thread ID: 97265 2009-02-10 01:23:00 Formating a 1TB external HDD on Windows XP Renmoo (66) Press F1
Post ID Timestamp Content User
746390 2009-02-10 04:00:00 Okay cool. What is "RAW" format? Should that be a concern to me? Renmoo (66)
746391 2009-02-10 04:04:00 RAW simply means that the drive has not been formatted. :) pcuser42 (130)
746392 2009-02-10 08:45:00 I have just tried Quick Format / Full Format but I think it is not working. What can I do to get the drive running again? Renmoo (66)
746393 2009-02-10 09:02:00 What was the problem with it? Blam (54)
746394 2009-02-10 09:50:00 There seems to be no sign of a formatting in progress despite the drive showing the message "formatting" under disk management. Everything is pretty much static. Have tried unplugging / replugging the drive. Renmoo (66)
746395 2009-02-10 09:51:00 How long did you wait for?? I wouldnt pull it out all the time

And what SP is on it?
Speedy Gonzales (78)
746396 2009-02-10 18:14:00 Dear all,
How long would it take to reformat such a massive capacity hard drive? I have just been given a half-working 1TB external hard drive to fix. The owner "just wanted it to start working". It does not have any data in it. Since this morning my laptop has been trying to format the drive, but I haven't got any idea whether it is progressing or not (the status does say "formatting" though).

Under the properties of the hard drive, it says "RAW" with respect to the format type (rather than FAT32 or NTFS).

Cheers :)

I think the point here is you say the disk is half-working! What do you mean by half-working? Sounds like its failing to me. As it's a 1TB drive it is fairly new and probably covered by manufacturers warranty, unless its been drop of misused.
porkster (6331)
746397 2009-02-11 00:02:00 Apologies for rushing my first post. Here's the situation:

When I connected the external hard drive to my laptop, Windows recognised it and installed the relevant drivers. After three minutes or so, an icon would pop up in the system tray, saying that it has been installed successfully. However, when I go to My Computer, the drive was not visible there. After waiting for another five minutes, it showed up as "H:". I tried to double click it, but the "My Computer" Window stalled in the process. I have also tried to access the HDD via Command Prompt - but to no avail.

Having reached this stage, I decided to format the drive via Disk Management console. After right-clicking the drive and click "Quick Format", I waited for about eight hours before calling it a quit. No visual changes associated with the progress were visible.

The 1TB HDD is no longer covered by the warranty, it seems that porkster.

Cheers :)
Renmoo (66)
746398 2009-02-11 20:56:00 Format with gparted? Or linux distro?

Not within windows....
Blam (54)
746399 2009-02-12 01:33:00 I will give it a try when I can find my Ubuntu disc. Can I possibly run gparted using Ubuntu running via Microsoft Virtual PC?

Cheers :)
Renmoo (66)
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