Sata 2 TB hard drive formatting problem with vista

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BVD32

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I was installing a new hard drive, which is a 2 TB Seagate internal hard drive and when I got to the formatting part, it got to about 53% complete and then got hung up and froze. Any suggestions? Could the hard drive be too big?
 
I am not at home now where the computer is located, but here is the information I can give you.


I use Windows Vista on an HP Pavillion Computer. It is about 2 or 3 years old. i don't have the exact model number, but it is a Seagate 2 TD Internal SATA disk drive.
 
I stand to be corrected on this, but if you download SIW, that will tell you how much HDD space your Mobo will support
 
BVD32 said:
Did not work. Should I have just done a quick format?
Click to expand...

Shouldn't make any odds really but it wouldn't hurt to give it a try.

As well as right clicking on the disk icon in 'My Computer' and selecting 'format' the disk can also be formatted from Control panel/Admin/Disk management.
 
My computer details:

Manufacturer: Hewlett-Packard
Model: Compact Presario - 5550F
Processor: AMD Athlon (tm) 64 X2 Dual Core Processor 5400+ 2.80 GHZ
Memory: 3 GB
System: 32 bit Operating System
Operating System: Windows Vista Home Premium and Service Pack 2
Seagate Barracuda LP 2TB hard Drive
S/N: 5XW1aaF0

Any other information needed?
 
I'm more willing to bet on it being a DOA drive :(

All it takes is a careless delivery man to make a drive defective.

If your system couldn't support it you wouldn't get as far as you are atm.
 
Well the formatting goes up to 54% and then stops. It still says it is formatting, but goes no further than 54%. This happened twice. It will not let me do a quick format either. I am thinking that the BIOS can not support a 2 TB disk drive. The primary drive shows as two drive letters, C and D with D being the place where all the data is if you need to rescue or reload everything. Do you think I can split the 2 TB drive into two as well? If so, how would I do that?
 
I finally got through to Seagate and I had to send the drive back as it was corrupted. Some waranty they have. I had to pay for shipping and the new drive they are sending is a refurbished one!
 
BVD32 said:
I finally got through to Seagate and I had to send the drive back as it was corrupted. Some waranty they have. I had to pay for shipping and the new drive they are sending is a refurbished one!
Click to expand...

That's common practice with all hard disk manufacturers actually.

Most hard disk manufacturers give a three year warranty and that's why they charge postage as most warranties for a product are only 12 months.

And you'll find the refurbished drive has the same amount of warranty as the one you sent back, at least.

Sometimes, if you get lucky, they'll send you a new, bigger disk, I once returned a Western Digital 74Gb Raptor drive that was faulty and got back a 150Gb Velicoraptor, brand new.
 
Well I received a new refyrbished 2TB drive back from Seagate and I am having the same problem. I was able to format 1 TB by partitioning it into two, but the second would not format. I have a feeling my system can not handle it. Do I need to do something to my BIOS? The Seagate guy told me to format the drive in another computer. I have Windows Vista and the only other computer I have is windows XP. Would that be a problem?
 
BVD32 said:
Well I received a new refyrbished 2TB drive back from Seagate and I am having the same problem. I was able to format 1 TB by partitioning it into two, but the second would not format. I have a feeling my system can not handle it. Do I need to do something to my BIOS? The Seagate guy told me to format the drive in another computer. I have Windows Vista and the only other computer I have is windows XP. Would that be a problem?
Click to expand...

Try it, it won't do any harm.
 
Well it worked. I used my son't computer that had Windows XP. For some reason it would not do a quick format so we did a normal format and although it took about 5 hours, I now have 1.8 TB available to me now.

Thank you to everyone for your help and insights!

Bill
 
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