Hard drive won't format \ VOGONS

Hard drive won't format

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First post, by AdamP

Posted on 2024-01-16, 02:28

AdamP Offline

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Hi,

I'm trying to revive an old Windows 98SE rig. To that end, I got a new hard drive (Maxtor Fireball 3 40GB), but it won't format in Windows Setup. Both the BIOS and fdisk recognise it and correctly report its capacity, but when I try to format it, it never goes beyond 0%. There are no error messages, just eternal 0%.

Is the drive faulty? Is it incompatible with the motherboard? Is the PSU insufficient? Is my computer just knackered? Or could it be something else?

Does anyone have any idea what's going on? Thanks.

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Reply 1 of 8, by giantclam

Posted on 2024-01-16, 03:01

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Have you verified the drive is OK in another machine?

Reply 2 of 8, by AdamP

Posted on 2024-01-16, 03:13

AdamP Offline

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giantclam wrote on 2024-01-16, 03:01:

Have you verified the drive is OK in another machine?

No, but the eBay listing said it had been refurbished, and had screenshots of testing software showing it's okay.

Also, I forgot to say that I've tried smaller partitions and clearing the extended configuration data, but neither had any effect.

Reply 3 of 8, by giantclam

Posted on 2024-01-16, 03:20

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That'd be where I start .... I don't trust ebay listing blurbs, too easy to fake/lie ...ie; that listing, testing on a USB interface? (????... how can you test a drive, when you cannot reach full data rate?).

Test the drive yourself ~ it'll save you chasing your tail.

Reply 4 of 8, by AdamP

Posted on 2024-01-16, 03:32

AdamP Offline

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To rule out motherboard/bios incompatibility, I'd need to test it on a newer system. I only have one functioning newer desktop, and I'm not sure that it has IDE. Also, I'd rather not go fiddling with a machine that's working. I do, however, have a USB IDE hard drive enclosure (though I assume that's what the seller used to test the drive).

The drive passes fdisk's drive integrity checks, for whatever that's worth.

Reply 5 of 8, by Zup

Posted on 2024-01-16, 05:57

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AdamP wrote on 2024-01-16, 03:32:
The drive passes fdisk's drive integrity checks, for whatever that's worth.

Not much.

You should use a tool like MHDD to check for bad sectors.

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Reply 6 of 8, by debs3759

Posted on 2024-01-16, 08:02

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Sounds like bad sectors near the start of the disk

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Reply 7 of 8, by AdamP

Posted on 2024-01-16, 08:47

AdamP Offline

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Well, what do you know? 😲 I disabled Legacy USB, Plug & Play O/S, and Scan User Flash Area, tried again (not expecting it to work; I was just clutching at straws), and it worked! An unexpected, but very welcome turn of events!

Why would any of those prevent a disk from being formatted?

Reply 8 of 8, by Ryccardo

Posted on 2024-01-16, 13:03

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Only thing I suspect being related (by a very long shot) is USB support, which usually includes a MSC to INT13 driver - sure, especially with no USB drive connected it would be a rather weird failure mode… but I've seen worse in PC history 😀 🙁

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