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Hard Drive can't be deep formatted - Chuck it?

maximumzeromaximumzero I...wait, what?New Orleans, LARegistered User regular
edited March 2011 in Help / Advice Forum
I've got an old Maxtor 300GB HDD pulled from a enclosure that the boss had in storage forever. Probably at least 5 years old. Windows will recognize it and I can write files to it, but a full format fails. (Though a quick one runs fine.)

Also spinrite, software that supposedly diagnoses HDD problems, halts at 2%, saying it's got over 60 hours or processing left. I left it on overnight and it didn't make any progress other than making the enclosure and HDD within extremely hot.

So even though the drive can be written to multiple programs have issues with it. Pretty much not worth keeping right?

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Posts

  • MushroomStickMushroomStick Registered User regular
    edited March 2011
    At this point, I would open it up and take out the magnets. Then I would probably hurt myself somehow.

    MushroomStick on
  • maximumzeromaximumzero I...wait, what? New Orleans, LARegistered User regular
    edited March 2011
    Well sure, that's what you would do, but should I do?

    maximumzero on
    FU7kFbw.png
    Switch: 6200-8149-0919 / Wii U: maximumzero / 3DS: 0860-3352-3335 / eBay Shop
  • Macro9Macro9 Registered User regular
    edited March 2011
    Did you use Windows built in formating stuff? Try to use something else like the HP format tool.

    That never seems to give me any problems. Test the HDD again if that works to see if it's worth keeping.

    Macro9 on
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  • MushroomStickMushroomStick Registered User regular
    edited March 2011
    maximumzero wrote: »
    Well sure, that's what you would do, but should I do?

    What I meant by that, is that a relatively tiny, 5 year old hard drive probably isn't worth the effort/time.

    MushroomStick on
  • maximumzeromaximumzero I...wait, what? New Orleans, LARegistered User regular
    edited March 2011
    MushroomStick wrote: »
    maximumzero wrote: »
    Well sure, that's what you would do, but should I do?

    What I meant by that, is that a relatively tiny, 5 year old hard drive probably isn't worth the effort/time.

    300GB is tiny these days?
    Macro9 wrote: »
    Did you use Windows built in formating stuff? Try to use something else like the HP format tool.

    That never seems to give me any problems. Test the HDD again if that works to see if it's worth keeping.

    I tried spinrite, which is supposed to be good stuff, but after 24 hours of scanning all it did was get to 2%

    maximumzero on
    FU7kFbw.png
    Switch: 6200-8149-0919 / Wii U: maximumzero / 3DS: 0860-3352-3335 / eBay Shop
  • Rear Admiral ChocoRear Admiral Choco I wanna be an owl, Jerry! Owl York CityRegistered User regular
    edited March 2011
    If it doesn't have anything important on it, I'd chuck it, or perhaps set it aside for home use but only for files that I'm not too worried about keeping.

    Rear Admiral Choco on
  • GriswoldGriswold that's rough, buddyRegistered User regular
    edited March 2011
    Spinpoint F3 1TB for 55 bucks

    so yeah, chuck it

    Griswold on
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  • bowenbowen Sup? Registered User regular
    edited March 2011
    You didn't try to format it as FAT32 did you? There are some pretty nasty limitations to FAT32, especially on certain versions of windows. You might also try to repartition it first.

    I don't think the drive is bad necessarily, especially if it's not used so much, that seems unlikely to me anyways.

    bowen on
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  • MushroomStickMushroomStick Registered User regular
    edited March 2011
    maximumzero wrote: »
    MushroomStick wrote: »
    maximumzero wrote: »
    Well sure, that's what you would do, but should I do?

    What I meant by that, is that a relatively tiny, 5 year old hard drive probably isn't worth the effort/time.

    300GB is tiny these days?

    Yeah, unless its solid state, I guess. I think its been something like 3 years since I've bought a drive under a terrabyte. Unless its a fast HD for the OS, I probably wouldn't put anything less than 2TB in as a storage drive as that seems to be about the sweet spot for price per GB.

    MushroomStick on
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