Format Terminated

[p51]

Hi guys!

I am trying to format a hard drive, and ran into an error that I have never seen before. I was hoping someone could help me out.

I did an fdisk, then proceeded with a format, like I have done many times. The format got to 3% then said Not Ready Format Terminated, and kicked me back to the dos prompt. I tried twice, with the same results. Any ideas? Is that a bad hard drive?

Thanks,

p51

 

[Lurker1]

You may want to try a different IDE cable and different power connection too. Maybe try hooking it up to the secondary IDE port to format the drive. Is the drive being detected correctly in the computers bios?

Other than that I would try a different hard drive, it sounds like it is bad.

 

[JohnWill]

I have to say, whenever I've seen a not-ready message from a hard disk, it's been a hardware issue. The HD is obviously the top suspect, but as mentioned, it could be the cable, P/S, or MB.

 

[p51]

I tried a different power from the power supply, and the problem was still there. A different ide cable made the problem worse. My guess is the current cable is ok, and I swapped it witha bad one. I am not positive though. I am currently trying to find a good machine with the same set up, that I can swap the hard drives, and see what happens.

Thanks for the help.

 

[p51]

I have the original hard drive in another pc and it is almost done formatting. I guess maybe there is a problem with the mb or power supply, possible. Would somewhere like PCPitstop be able to tell me that kind of info, if I can get this thing up and going and connected to the internet?

 

[Lurker1]

You might want to try the drive and the cable from the good machine in the bad computer. Did you try the hooking the drive up to the secondary IDE port to see if that made a difference?

 

[Matrikx_]

Old sayings are "If it aint broke dont fix it" and "Dont look a gift horse in the mouth" and both apply here

 

[p51]

Lurker- no, I haven't tried hooking to the second ide port. I will try that too, and see what kind of luck I have. Thanks.