What's with the 250GB Drive

[akinonyx]

Hello, I'm hoping I can find a solution to my problem here as I couldn't find one elsewhere on the net.
I have a laptop and currently have a 120GB hard drive in an external enclosure. I have just bought a new 250GB hard drive and have installed it in the external enclosure. Though partitioning and formating the 120GB was a breeze, I've had nothing but problems with the new 250GB.
Below are the specs of what I'm working with. In both Partion Magic and in the Win2000 Disk Management, it correctly displays the 250GB drive (233GB). Regardless of which program I use (ie. Partion Magic, Win Disk Management, command line FORMAT) I get problems.
Generally, what will happen is it will partition fine. Then it will begin to the formatting process (VERY slowly) and then either throw an error either during or at the end of the process. And this is when I try to format a very small partition (ie. 100MB). I have successfully formated a 10MB partition. On a large partition (ie. 30GB) the format process will start but will not progress.
The only two things I can think of is that the drive is faulty, or because I am booting my OS from a floppy there is some sort of recognition problem.
I can't run the diagnosis software from Maxtor because that requires the drive to be installed internally.
So any help to this problem will be greatly appreciated.
Additionally, how long should it generally take to format the 250GB drive in its entirety?

Comp: Toshiba Satellite 2805-S201
OS: Win2000 SP3
New Drive: Maxtor Maxline Plus II 250GB ATA/133
External Case: CoolMax CD-309 USB 2.0

 

[TCWOgirl]

HHhhhhhmmm...sounds like a bad drive to me. Do you have a desktop computer that you can use to attempt to format the drive??

 

[akinonyx]

Yes I tried it in a desktop as 2nd primary, running Win98. But that only recognizes it as 120GB, and I ran into similar problems. If it is indeed a bad drive, is there a method to remedy it so that perhaps the faulty areas can be ignored?
Thanks

 

[ekÆsine]

does win2k sp3 support USB 2.0? that could be the reason for it being slow. the reason it is slow on your win98 is because i don't think it has support for USB 2 and i it might not even have support for drives greater than 120GB. to me i do not think you have a faulty drive.

since i'm not too familair with win2k or win98 anymore i would need to actually see whats going on. the only thing i can suggest is get a hold of winxp SP1 CD and try to format using that by mounting the HDD internally or maybe within the USB2.0 enclosure (not sure if winxp setup loads drivers during setup). you won't need to even install winxp, just get into the windows setup utility by booting with the CD. PM me, i can assist you further.

 

[Rey_Nemaattori]

Hello, I'm hoping I can find a solution to my problem here as I couldn't find one elsewhere on the net.
I have a laptop and currently have a 120GB hard drive in an external enclosure. I have just bought a new 250GB hard drive and have installed it in the external enclosure. Though partitioning and formating the 120GB was a breeze, I've had nothing but problems with the new 250GB.
Below are the specs of what I'm working with. In both Partion Magic and in the Win2000 Disk Management, it correctly displays the 250GB drive (233GB). Regardless of which program I use (ie. Partion Magic, Win Disk Management, command line FORMAT) I get problems.
Generally, what will happen is it will partition fine. Then it will begin to the formatting process (VERY slowly) and then either throw an error either during or at the end of the process. And this is when I try to format a very small partition (ie. 100MB). I have successfully formated a 10MB partition. On a large partition (ie. 30GB) the format process will start but will not progress.
The only two things I can think of is that the drive is faulty, or because I am booting my OS from a floppy there is some sort of recognition problem.
I can't run the diagnosis software from Maxtor because that requires the drive to be installed internally.
So any help to this problem will be greatly appreciated.
Additionally, how long should it generally take to format the 250GB drive in its entirety?

Comp: Toshiba Satellite 2805-S201
OS: Win2000 SP3
New Drive: Maxtor Maxline Plus II 250GB ATA/133
External Case: CoolMax CD-309 USB 2.0

First of all USB(regardless of 1.1 or 2.0) driver are utterly slow in comparison with PATA or SATA drives.

Second, if you format a drive, use the quick format option. A normal format als checks each block wether it's formatting went right or wrong, taking ages on a 250 GB disc

Third: I think the drive immense size causes problems. I suggest you built it in a desktop system to see if it's the drives size that causes problems to the external HDD handler, of the drive itself. You can also try to limit the drives size, often a mess using jumpers, but @ least the disk will be usable...

I doubt winxp will do much better. Als win2k and winxp have nearly the same OS-kernel(NT 5xxxx & NT 5.1xxxxxxx) WinXp is more user friendly though, so instead of just prompting an error it'll guide you through a useless troubleshooter

A BIOS flash/upgrade might help getting better/proper access to the disk.

Last but not least: Go to maxtors site en download a drive fitness test(of something like it). If this fails you have to RMA the drive. I suggest you take a smaller one though, cuz 250 GB is a lot of space. Smaller disks are often faster, even though through that USB2.0 you would barely knwo the diff.