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Hardware and Windows Vista Hardware issues in relation to Windows Vista. (microsoft.public.windows.vista.hardware_devices) |
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Problems formatting a hard drive in Vista
I'm using Vista Home Premium on an Acer Aspire laptop, and recently I lost
access to half my hard drive. I rang my manufacturers support line, and they told me how to create a new vloume using disk management. However, when i double click it, it says it needs to be formatted. After waiting a long time (twice!) for the volume to format, it reaches 100% completion and then an error message apears saying 'Windows cannot complete the format'. This happens when i try Quick Format too. Upon clicking OK, i get a further message saying 'Check to see that the disk and drive are connected properly, and make sure the disk is not read only'. The disk is certainly not read only, so can anyone suggest where i go from here? I can see the drive in MyComputer etc. but cannot open or explore it. In Properties, it says the volume is 0 bytes big! And it should be 50GB. Any help would be greatly appreciated. Spug |
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Problems formatting a hard drive in Vista
"Spuggy88" wrote in message ... I'm using Vista Home Premium on an Acer Aspire laptop, and recently I lost access to half my hard drive. I rang my manufacturers support line, and they told me how to create a new vloume using disk management. However, when i double click it, it says it needs to be formatted. After waiting a long time (twice!) for the volume to format, it reaches 100% completion and then an error message apears saying 'Windows cannot complete the format'. This happens when i try Quick Format too. Upon clicking OK, i get a further message saying 'Check to see that the disk and drive are connected properly, and make sure the disk is not read only'. The disk is certainly not read only, so can anyone suggest where i go from here? I can see the drive in MyComputer etc. but cannot open or explore it. In Properties, it says the volume is 0 bytes big! And it should be 50GB. Any help would be greatly appreciated. Spug I would guess that the hard drive is dying. If the laptop is in warranty I'd advise contacting Acer again and getting it repaired. If not a new hard drive would be a round £42. tp £50.00 for a 80Gb one (depending on whether S-ATA or IDE), and get your data copied over to the new drive. Trev |
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Problems formatting a hard drive in Vista
I would guess that the hard drive is dying. If the laptop is in warranty I'd advise contacting Acer again and getting it repaired. If not a new hard drive would be a round £42. tp £50.00 for a 80Gb one (depending on whether S-ATA or IDE), and get your data copied over to the new drive. Trev Thanks for the help Trev. I'll get in touch with Acer and see what they recommend. However, I can't see how the drive can be dying! its less than 8 months old, and this is the first problem i've ever had with it. is there no other way of going about fixing it? |
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Problems formatting a hard drive in Vista
Spuggy88;663954 Wrote: I'm using Vista Home Premium on an Acer Aspire laptop, and recently I lost access to half my hard drive. I rang my manufacturers support line, and they told me how to create a new vloume using disk management. However, when i double click it, it says it needs to be formatted. After waiting a long time (twice!) for the volume to format, it reaches 100% completion and then an error message apears saying 'Windows cannot complete the format'. This happens when i try Quick Format too. Upon clicking OK, i get a further message saying 'Check to see that the disk and drive are connected properly, and make sure the disk is not read only'. The disk is certainly not read only, so can anyone suggest where i go from here? I can see the drive in MyComputer etc. but cannot open or explore it. In Properties, it says the volume is 0 bytes big! And it should be 50GB. Any help would be greatly appreciated. Spug I have trouble reading your post. You did say "hard drive", but which one? There is the OS C: drive, and there is the local D: drive. OR, you actually mean CD/DVD E: drives ,since you mentioned someting about "read only" ? -- davidjchuang |
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Problems formatting a hard drive in Vista
"davidjchuang" wrote: Spuggy88;663954 Wrote: I'm using Vista Home Premium on an Acer Aspire laptop, and recently I lost access to half my hard drive. I rang my manufacturers support line, and they told me how to create a new vloume using disk management. However, when i double click it, it says it needs to be formatted. After waiting a long time (twice!) for the volume to format, it reaches 100% completion and then an error message apears saying 'Windows cannot complete the format'. This happens when i try Quick Format too. Upon clicking OK, i get a further message saying 'Check to see that the disk and drive are connected properly, and make sure the disk is not read only'. The disk is certainly not read only, so can anyone suggest where i go from here? I can see the drive in MyComputer etc. but cannot open or explore it. In Properties, it says the volume is 0 bytes big! And it should be 50GB. Any help would be greatly appreciated. Spug I have trouble reading your post. You did say "hard drive", but which one? There is the OS C: drive, and there is the local D: drive. OR, you actually mean CD/DVD E: drives ,since you mentioned someting about "read only" ? -- davidjchuang I mean the D: drive, NOT the DVD drive or the drive holding my operating system. Sorry for confusion. After talking to acer support, i managed to get the D: drive back, but it needs to be formatted before i can use it. Again, the support guy told me it can't be done in Windows, but i need to download fdisk or partition magic. any suggestions on which one? and also, what is the difference between IDE and SATA external drives? Thanks |
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Problems formatting a hard drive in Vista
The important difference between IDE and SATA external drives is not so much
the drives as the enclosures. IDE enclosures connect to the computer with USB or firewire cables. SATA enclosures connect via a SATA cable to an eSATA port or by USB or firewire cables (a variety of connectors on the back of the enclosure). The connection speed of USB and firewire is far slower than by eSATA. Further, you can boot with an eSATA connected drive just the same as with any internal SATA drive. If you have an eSATA port on your computer I strongly recommend a SATA drive, SATA enclosure, and appropriate cable. The performance is far better than with USB or fireware. "Spuggy88" wrote in message ... "davidjchuang" wrote: Spuggy88;663954 Wrote: I'm using Vista Home Premium on an Acer Aspire laptop, and recently I lost access to half my hard drive. I rang my manufacturers support line, and they told me how to create a new vloume using disk management. However, when i double click it, it says it needs to be formatted. After waiting a long time (twice!) for the volume to format, it reaches 100% completion and then an error message apears saying 'Windows cannot complete the format'. This happens when i try Quick Format too. Upon clicking OK, i get a further message saying 'Check to see that the disk and drive are connected properly, and make sure the disk is not read only'. The disk is certainly not read only, so can anyone suggest where i go from here? I can see the drive in MyComputer etc. but cannot open or explore it. In Properties, it says the volume is 0 bytes big! And it should be 50GB. Any help would be greatly appreciated. Spug I have trouble reading your post. You did say "hard drive", but which one? There is the OS C: drive, and there is the local D: drive. OR, you actually mean CD/DVD E: drives ,since you mentioned someting about "read only" ? -- davidjchuang I mean the D: drive, NOT the DVD drive or the drive holding my operating system. Sorry for confusion. After talking to acer support, i managed to get the D: drive back, but it needs to be formatted before i can use it. Again, the support guy told me it can't be done in Windows, but i need to download fdisk or partition magic. any suggestions on which one? and also, what is the difference between IDE and SATA external drives? Thanks |
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Problems formatting a hard drive in Vista
On Mon, 31 Mar 2008 07:58:03 -0700, Spuggy88
wrote: "davidjchuang" wrote: Spuggy88;663954 Wrote: I'm using Vista Home Premium on an Acer Aspire laptop, and recently I lost access to half my hard drive. I rang my manufacturers support line, and they told me how to create a new vloume using disk management. However, when i double click it, it says it needs to be formatted. After waiting a long time (twice!) for the volume to format, it reaches 100% completion and then an error message apears saying 'Windows cannot complete the format'. This happens when i try Quick Format too. Upon clicking OK, i get a further message saying 'Check to see that the disk and drive are connected properly, and make sure the disk is not read only'. The disk is certainly not read only, so can anyone suggest where i go from here? I can see the drive in MyComputer etc. but cannot open or explore it. In Properties, it says the volume is 0 bytes big! And it should be 50GB. Any help would be greatly appreciated. Spug I have trouble reading your post. You did say "hard drive", but which one? There is the OS C: drive, and there is the local D: drive. OR, you actually mean CD/DVD E: drives ,since you mentioned someting about "read only" ? -- davidjchuang I mean the D: drive, NOT the DVD drive or the drive holding my operating system. Sorry for confusion. After talking to acer support, i managed to get the D: drive back, but it needs to be formatted before i can use it. Again, the support guy told me it can't be done in Windows, but i need to download fdisk or partition magic. any suggestions on which one? Any disk partition that Disk Management can create, it should also be able to format. You have some kind of hardware problem. and also, what is the difference between IDE and SATA external drives? Thanks |