Re: Can't format 200 GB Maxtor SATA drive with Windows XP

Thanks for the advice. I followed your instructions and the format within diskpart reported 100% completion without any errors. I then reconnected the IDE drive and rebooted into XP. However when I clicked on drive F: (the SATA drive) it behaved exactly as before: This drive is not formatted. When I let it format it for me I got the same old error as before: Windows was unable to complete the format.

To be honest I'm not sure why the format in the disk repair part of the XP setup CD should be any different to the format in the normal part of the setup, so I'm curious as to why you think your solution would work (although at least it said it completed the format without problems!).

Just in case I also tried setting EnableBigLba = 1 in the registry as Bob Harris had suggested, but that's made no difference either.

Any more ideas please?  Thanks for your help.
Lucas.

Andrew E. wrote:
Try this,unplug C: drive,unplug the IDE cable,leaving SATA and youre cdrom.
Boot to BIOS,set to boot to cdrom,in cd boot,press F6 load drivers,then at info
page,select repair,you shouldnt be prompted for password,its enter key if you are,
then type:DiskPart In DiskPart,create a partition,then press Esc key,then type:
FORMAT C: /FS:ntfs When its thru,type:EXIT Shutoff computer,reatach IDE
drives,start-up computer.The SATA drive is now ready for use...

"Lucas Partridge" wrote:


Hi,

I've got a new Maxtor DiamondMax 10 200 GB SATA hard drive, model
6B200MO, and I want to use it as an additional drive in my PC. I don't
want to make it my bootable drive. I already have Windows XP Home newly
installed on a separate Western Digital IDE drive.

My motherboard is quite old: Micro-Star International MS-6330 K7TPro2
with a VIA KT133 chipset. I'm using AWARD BIOS W6330VMS v3.6 100702 (the
latest version I could download from MSI's website). Because the
motherboard is old I had to get a PCI controller card to recognise the
Maxtor drive. I got a Silicon Image SIL-3112 SATA card and am using the
Sil 3112 SATARaid Controller driver v1.0.0.51 (downloaded from Windows
Update).

The Western Digital drive is jumpered as the master drive and is
connected to the primary IDE controller on the motherboard (using the
terminal black connector on the IDE cable). The Maxtor drive is
connected to the SATA controller card.

I downloaded Maxtor's setup software MaxBlast 4.0 for Windows and used
that to partition and format the new drive. I had to do this before
Windows would list the drive in Windows Explorer. When I click on the
drive in Explorer I'm told it's not formatted but when I do choose to
format it there and then I get the following error:

"Windows was unable to complete the format."

This happens whether I use the quick or the full format. Disk Management
shows the drive to be healthy but I can't format it there either: "The
format did not complete successfully."

I tried jumpering the Western Digital drive as Master with Slave but the
BIOS reported "Primary master hard disk fail" so I removed the jumper as
it was before.

Maxtor's diagnostic utility PowerMax v4.21 reports no problems with the
Maxtor drive: I've done a low level format writing zeroes to the disk
several times but that doesn't cure the problem.

Originally I had tried installing XP directly on the Maxtor drive but XP
setup also failed with "Setup was unable to format the partition. The
disk may be damaged... blah, blah."  I did press F6 during setup to load
the Sil 3112 Raid driver.

Interestingly Microsoft's Hardware Compatibility List (HCL) doesn't
include model 6B200MO among its list of compatible hardware
(http://www.microsoft.com/windows/catalog/default.aspx?subID=22&xslt=search&qu=diamondmax+10&scope=1&btnSearch=Go).

Please can someone help here? Many thanks.

.

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