HDD just wont format

[rainydaytoast]

Hello all,

I recently bought a second hand 20 gig maxtor HDD. It came with win98 on it. When i placed it into the computer and tried to start it I was getting all kinds of errors... i figured it was a bad installation. I decided to only use it as a spare HDD for my good computer (I was building a second comp out of all my spares) and thought I would format it.

Every time I go to format it, wether it be CMD Prompt or Disk Manager or simply right clicking and going "format" it always hangs at 13%

So I thought I would just select all files and hit delete (Big mystake). Then i tried to istall win XP on it. I managed to do so but its also corrupt and wont work properly and still wont format, even through installing XP it says (an OS already exist etc etc)

All i want to do is Format this drive and clean it of all files on it!!!!!

Comp. Specs
WinXP SP2
AMD Athlon 3000+ (2.0 GHz)
160gig HDD
GeForce 7600 GS
1GB Ram

Please someone help me out,

Thanks in advance

Nathan

 

[Nodsu]

Second hand hard drive? That's just asking for trouble.

Test the thing with the manufacturer diagnostics utility. I am pretty sure that you will find the drive bad.

 

[captaincranky]

And A Second Hand Maxtor at That......!

You could; Install the drive in another computer and try to reformat it there, and /or find a "drive scrubber" type utility which would make the computer think that it was a new drive, right out of the box.

One caveat; don't spend any more money if you can't beg or borrow these things.

 

[rainydaytoast]

Hey, thanks guys, ill try out those ideas and let you know how it goes.

 

[rainydaytoast]

Is maxtor a branch of seagate?

 

[Nodsu]

Yes, Seagate bought Maxtor recently.

 

[CCT]

You can try the Free version of this:

http://www.killdisk.com/

 

[Tedster]

a 20gb drive? Must be ancient. I would run the manfactuer diagnostic CD to test the drive. if it fails- junk it.