I've recently added a new second slave HDD (Hitachi Deskstar 250GB). It's
seen in the BIOS, it's seen in Device Manager, but I can't get Disk Manager
to format the new HDD. It goes through the whole process - taking about an
hour - then comes up with the message 'Windows was unable to complete the
format".

I've tried uninstalling and reinstalling, cutting the partition size down to
100GB and trying to format, but still won't format. Can anyone help?

"Mikenn" wrote in message
...
I've recently added a new second slave HDD (Hitachi Deskstar 250GB). It's
seen in the BIOS, it's seen in Device Manager, but I can't get Disk
Manager
to format the new HDD. It goes through the whole process - taking about an
hour - then comes up with the message 'Windows was unable to complete the
format".

I've tried uninstalling and reinstalling, cutting the partition size down
to
100GB and trying to format, but still won't format. Can anyone help?


Have you run the manufacturers diagnostics utilities on the drive to be sure
it's healthy?
You might want to try that.

I've downloaded the Drive Fitness Test from Hitachi but Vista will not
install on floppy to enable me to create a boot disk. Any way I can overide
this?


"PvdG42" wrote:

"Mikenn" wrote in message
...
I've recently added a new second slave HDD (Hitachi Deskstar 250GB). It's
seen in the BIOS, it's seen in Device Manager, but I can't get Disk
Manager
to format the new HDD. It goes through the whole process - taking about an
hour - then comes up with the message 'Windows was unable to complete the
format".

I've tried uninstalling and reinstalling, cutting the partition size down
to
100GB and trying to format, but still won't format. Can anyone help?


Have you run the manufacturers diagnostics utilities on the drive to be sure
it's healthy?
You might want to try that.

Mikenn wrote:
I've downloaded the Drive Fitness Test from Hitachi but Vista will not
install on floppy to enable me to create a boot disk. Any way I can overide
this?


1. You may go to a friend's PC and create a DFT boot disk there.

2. Are you sure your Vista installation is perfect?

3. I would install the Hitachi 250 GB as the only HDD and then boot
from the Vista DVD - thus getting the chance to make partitions and
format the disk.

Roy



"PvdG42" wrote:

"Mikenn" wrote in message
...
I've recently added a new second slave HDD (Hitachi Deskstar 250GB). It's
seen in the BIOS, it's seen in Device Manager, but I can't get Disk
Manager
to format the new HDD. It goes through the whole process - taking about an
hour - then comes up with the message 'Windows was unable to complete the
format".

I've tried uninstalling and reinstalling, cutting the partition size down
to
100GB and trying to format, but still won't format. Can anyone help?

Have you run the manufacturers diagnostics utilities on the drive to be sure
it's healthy?
You might want to try that.

"Roy Coorne" wrote:

Mikenn wrote:
I've downloaded the Drive Fitness Test from Hitachi but Vista will not
install on floppy to enable me to create a boot disk. Any way I can overide
this?


1. You may go to a friend's PC and create a DFT boot disk there.

2. Are you sure your Vista installation is perfect?

3. I would install the Hitachi 250 GB as the only HDD and then boot
from the Vista DVD - thus getting the chance to make partitions and
format the disk.

Roy



"PvdG42" wrote:

"Mikenn" wrote in message
...
I've recently added a new second slave HDD (Hitachi Deskstar 250GB). It's
seen in the BIOS, it's seen in Device Manager, but I can't get Disk
Manager
to format the new HDD. It goes through the whole process - taking about an
hour - then comes up with the message 'Windows was unable to complete the
format".

I've tried uninstalling and reinstalling, cutting the partition size down
to
100GB and trying to format, but still won't format. Can anyone help?

Have you run the manufacturers diagnostics utilities on the drive to be sure
it's healthy?
You might want to try that.

Thanks very much for the suggestions I've managed to set up a disk so I can
run Hitachi's Drive Fitness Test and it reports no problems. I even managed
to erase the drive so it loaded as a new peice of hardware once again.
Unfortunately this did not work and Vista will only format as RAW file system
on this HDD.
I'll now try to install the HDD as the only one on the system and load up
Vista as fresh OS.
Regards
Mike

I had this same problem with a Seagate 1.5 TB hdd. Vista would not
format a 500 GB partition. Ran fdisk off 98se and tried fresh re-install
of Vista. Would not install because it could not prepare the drive.
Strangely I loaded Windows 7 on the same drive and no problem -
installed perfectly. Long story short I partitioned and formatted the
1.5 TB using win 7 and plugged it back in to the system running Vista
x64 Ultimate and it works just fine. Got past the problem - but no idea
what happened.


--
tuscala