How long should it take to format a 500Gb HD?

Legless · 4 May 2007 at 17:09

Just installed a new 500Gb Western Digital - 5000AAKS HD and have set it up in windows, now i need to format it before using it, but it seems to sit @ 1% for ages??? Am i just being impatient or does it take a long time to format a fresh drive in windows? Am using XP+SP2...

Thx for any help...

Legless · 4 May 2007 at 17:16

Well i'll leave this for a couple of hours and post back... Just seems worrying that its not moving past 1%... :confused:

Legless · 5 May 2007 at 10:51

Thanks for the replies guys... As it turns out, the drive was faulty... It's died during formatting in windows, which caused XP to crash...

Now it doesn't show up in the bios/posting (which it did when i 1st installed it), it just sits there clicking away, thus preventing windows to load with the drive installed...

Time for an RMA... :eek:

Jeeze this sux... :mad:

Legless · 5 May 2007 at 14:29

Well drives being RMA'd... Pickup on tuesday... Damn bank holidays... :mad:

On the subject of wheather or not to format a new drive, i thought you had to? As when i installed the new drive in XP and went through the process of initialising it (else it wouldn't show up in explorer etc), it asked me to format it at the end, and if i said 'NO', it wouldn't let me access it, so it seems that a format WAS required in my case?

Can anyone shed any light on this? Is it just a problem with WD drives, that require a format? :confused:

Legless · 5 May 2007 at 14:53

basmic said:
Every single drive needs formatting before use, whether it's a quick or normal format.

TBH, I thought that was basic knowledge.

Well thats what i've always believed, and what i've always done when installing a new drive... But some people say that their drives come pre formatted? Not that i would trust it, i would reformat it myself to make sure its 100% working before filling it with important files...