HD format question

Boomyal

Supreme Mariner
Joined
Aug 16, 2003
Messages
12,072
Installed a new 40GB HD in my Firewire enclosure. Through 'disk management' I named it, partitioned it and tried to format it with out using the 'quick format' option. It tried to do this several times and it was taking forever. The first time it seemed to stall at 24%. The last time I let it attemp all night and this morning it was 82%. I let it go a little bit longer and it got up to 83%.

Obviously something was amiss. I cancelled the format, repartitioned the drive and formatted using the 'quick format' option. In a blink of the eye it was done. I copied a bunch of stuff to it and it seems to be working perfectly.

What gives?
 

Colorado04

Petty Officer 2nd Class
Joined
Aug 29, 2005
Messages
165
Re: HD format question

Just a cautionary note: I have tried several times to use a Firewire enclosure with bad results. I found that the drive was unstable when hot swaping. The TOC on the drive would become corrupted and I would lose data. The computer would not see the data on the drive and register it as a new, unformatted volume. I have since switched to USB enclosures and have had no issues. I am using XP PRO on a 3 gig HT machine. I would suggest that you test it for a while before trusting it with valuable data.

C.
 

Boomyal

Supreme Mariner
Joined
Aug 16, 2003
Messages
12,072
Re: HD format question

colorado04 said:
I would suggest that you test it for a while before trusting it with valuable data.

Ditto that colorado. This is my second attempt to replace a failed drive in this enclosure. I bought it a number of years ago and used it without fail until the drive just went t*ts up. It was orignally a 40 gig 5200 rpm 2mb cache? Maxtor Firewire.

I called Maxtor and they said that any new drive would work. So I got an 80 gig Maxtor and installed it. It did exactly, word for word, what you stated above.

I called Maxtor and they said that maybe the enclosures older circuitry couldn't handle the larger drive. So I bought the 40 gig and with exception of my stated format issue it has so far not exhibited any of the problems previously encounterd. I had tried to find a 5200 rpm Maxtor and just missed one on ebay so I settled for the faster one. For 30$ shipped I figured I could always throw them in Desktop for extra capacity.

I do plan on watching and playing with it before I load my business program back on it. Thanks
 
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