Slow hard drive format (ten hours!)

[Guest]

I posted yesterday about a hard drive format that was proceeding very slowly. It is a Maxtor 250GB ATA/133 drive, I set up a single partition and started a default NTFS format using the computer management applet. It took over 90 minutes to reach the "1 percent complete" point. I left it running over night and by this morning it had finished 90% in nine hours. The last 10% took about 45 minutes, the format was completed, and now the drive appears to work fine.

Any idea why the format took so long? I noticed that when it started I could hear a steady click, click, click, .. about once a second from the drive (as the heads moved from sector to sector?). At the end of the format the clicks had increased in frequency - maybe ten per second - more like the sounds I recall from previous HD formatting

Seem like something was bogging down the system. I had shut down all background activities; anti-virus, firewall, etc. I'm up to date on my service packs & driver updates - Have any of you seen this strange behaviour before

Kevin

 

[David Vair]

Clicks are usually a sign of something wrong with the drive. I have a 250 WD and it only took a few
seconds to format the drive (quick format). I would go to Maxtor's web site and download their
utilities for checking the drive.
--
Dave Vair
CNE, CNA, MCP, A+, N+
Computer Education Services Corp. (CESC)

I posted yesterday about a hard drive format that was proceeding very slowly. It is a Maxtor

250GB ATA/133 drive, I set up a single partition and started a default NTFS format using the
computer management applet. It took over 90 minutes to reach the "1 percent complete" point. I
left it running over night and by this morning it had finished 90% in nine hours. The last 10% took
about 45 minutes, the format was completed, and now the drive appears to work fine.

Any idea why the format took so long? I noticed that when it started I could hear a steady click,

click, click, .. about once a second from the drive (as the heads moved from sector to sector?). At
the end of the format the clicks had increased in frequency - maybe ten per second - more like the
sounds I recall from previous HD formatting.

Seem like something was bogging down the system. I had shut down all background activities;

anti-virus, firewall, etc. I'm up to date on my service packs & driver updates - Have any of you
seen this strange behaviour before?