Formatting 2TB hard drive problems

[Johnny Fortune]

There seem to be a number of people experiencing serious problems when formatting 2TB drives, myself included, which result in these drives being RMA'd. (Seagate and Western Digital). Please refer to http://www.thenextbench.com/hpg/board/mess...ding&page=1 for the most comprehensive post on this subject.

Many reach a 54% formatting ceiling when using Vista 32 Storage Manager to format their drives (full or quick options). A number of theories as to why this happens are being discussed, notably:

1) There is a problem with Vista OS. - 2) There are Motherboards/BIOS issues which prevent these drives from being formatted successfully. Some have successfully formatted these drive by using another computer or by using alternative software.

I am using a Asus Strike Extreme (Nividia 680i chipset) BIOS 1305, 4Gb RAM and an Areca 1220 Hardware Raid card supporting 7 x WD 500 drives. I've checked with Nividia system update tool to ensure my chipset drivers do not require updating. This is not a cheap motherboard/setup, yet I hit this 54% ceiling and the drive is now useless and has been RMA'd. I am concerned that this issue will reoccur when the replacement arrives unless I can find a solution and understand why this error exists. I do not have access to another computer and yes I could try some of the alternative solutions suggested in the above link. However, I wish to understand why this is happening i.e. is there a problem with my motherboard.

I've been impressed by MSFN forums ability to resolve these types of problems and have posted this thread in the hope that you guys can shed some light on this issue. These drives are not in a software RAID config as we are aware of the 2TB limits. These are in all cases being formatted as JBOD.

Any feedback would be appreciated. Cheers

Edited August 13, 2009 by Johnny Fortune

[ripken204]

your bios is from 2007/08/27

the latest is 1901 from 2009/05/13

please update it

http://dlsvr04.asus.com/pub/ASUS/mb/socket...xtreme_1901.zip

if that does not fix it then try using another program such as gparted to format it

http://gparted.sourceforge.net/

you may also need to update the firmware on your raid card

http://www.areca.us/support/download/RaidC...are/ARC1220.zip

which 2TB drive do you have? the WD drive is officially supported by areca. so the firmware update may be just what you need.

Edited August 13, 2009 by ripken204

[ccc_ddd]

DO THIS

attach this drive in another system, install as "slave" and detect in disk manager then try format-------------------------- first check this

[puntoMX]

install as "slave" and detect in disk manager then try format

Imposible in that setup as it's a single port, single drive SATA and not PATA.

[Barry47]

Hello,

I had the same problem and it looks as if the same resolution will work for you. Nvidia has the update for its motherboards and chipsets. (your is included: Nividia 680i chipset) it is located here:

http://www.nvidia.com/object/nforce_vista_15.23.html I have an nForce 570 SLIT-A, and this driver worked. Vista can now format drives larger than 1TB. I hope it will work for you.

Barry

There seem to be a number of people experiencing serious problems when formatting 2TB drives, myself included, which result in these drives being RMA'd. (Seagate and Western Digital). Please refer to http://www.thenextbench.com/hpg/board/mess...ding&page=1 for the most comprehensive post on this subject.

Many reach a 54% formatting ceiling when using Vista 32 Storage Manager to format their drives (full or quick options). A number of theories as to why this happens are being discussed, notably:

1) There is a problem with Vista OS. - 2) There are Motherboards/BIOS issues which prevent these drives from being formatted successfully. Some have successfully formatted these drive by using another computer or by using alternative software.

I am using a Asus Strike Extreme (Nividia 680i chipset) BIOS 1305, 4Gb RAM and an Areca 1220 Hardware Raid card supporting 7 x WD 500 drives. I've checked with Nividia system update tool to ensure my chipset drivers do not require updating. This is not a cheap motherboard/setup, yet I hit this 54% ceiling and the drive is now useless and has been RMA'd. I am concerned that this issue will reoccur when the replacement arrives unless I can find a solution and understand why this error exists. I do not have access to another computer and yes I could try some of the alternative solutions suggested in the above link. However, I wish to understand why this is happening i.e. is there a problem with my motherboard.

I've been impressed by MSFN forums ability to resolve these types of problems and have posted this thread in the hope that you guys can shed some light on this issue. These drives are not in a software RAID config as we are aware of the 2TB limits. These are in all cases being formatted as JBOD.

Any feedback would be appreciated. Cheers