How to format SATA drive ?

colinicky · 9 Jan 2010 at 10:21

I have a SATA hhd in my pc which has a bad windows xp on it & for some reason it will not let me reload xp on to it ,I can get it as far as "Setup is starting Windows" & then it just stops . This is obviously before the "FORMAT" option . Is there any other way to format the SATA hhd ? I do have another pc with SATA that I can connect it to but how do I set it up to format ? From previous experience of IDE you changed the jumper on the drive to slave &b although there is a jumper on the back of the drive there is no diagram to show what or where to change .
The drive is a Seagate Barracuda 120gb.

rpstewart · 9 Jan 2010 at 10:29

There is no concept of master and slave with SATA. Just plug the drive into a free port on the other PC and away you go.

Just make sure the BIOS boot order doesn't change and you'll be fine.

colinicky · 9 Jan 2010 at 10:43

Right , connected it to the other pc & switched on , boot order not changed . Shows in my computer as "D" right click on "D" and select "format" press start , warning box appears click "OK" Then bigger box appears saying " Windows cannot format this drive . Quit any disk utilities or other programs that are using this drive, and make sure that no window is displaying the contenta of the drive . Then try formatting again"
Any other ideas please ?

physichull · 9 Jan 2010 at 11:10

I have a similar problem, just put my new hard drive in, loaded up windows but it doesn't appear in my computer??? any ideas?

In the computer management and disk management it shows the disk there and I "Initialised" the disk as MBR, is that right??? It now shows the disk as online but "unallocated". HELP please!!!

Corasik · 9 Jan 2010 at 12:36

To the OP: Have you tried booting from a windows install CD instead, then you should be able to format and partition drives before the OS is loaded

.

Physichull, once its initialised, you still have to put partitions on it and assign drive letters, you use the computer management/disk management for that too.

physichull · 9 Jan 2010 at 12:47

Thanks, have just found it, you have to right click on a different bit to format (long story) sorted now thankyou.

rpstewart · 9 Jan 2010 at 12:52

colinicky said:
Right , connected it to the other pc & switched on , boot order not changed . Shows in my computer as "D" right click on "D" and select "format" press start , warning box appears click "OK" Then bigger box appears saying " Windows cannot format this drive . Quit any disk utilities or other programs that are using this drive, and make sure that no window is displaying the contenta of the drive . Then try formatting again"
Any other ideas please ?

Explorer can be a pain for formatting, it's easier to format it in disk management. Right click on My Computer and pick Manage. Once in disk management locate the D: drive then right click and format.

colinicky · 9 Jan 2010 at 12:57

Corasik said:
To the OP: Have you tried booting from a windows install CD instead, then you should be able to format and partition drives before the OS is loaded .

From my Op:-
"for some reason it will not let me reload xp on to it ,I can get it as far as "Setup is starting Windows" & then it just stops . This is obviously before the "FORMAT" option ."