Hi

I have just purchased a 60 gig 2.5" IDE hdd from ebay , I have put it into my external caddy that I use to keep downloaded films on , it is showing in my computer , I have tried to format it , but it say's it can not format , this is in xp , when I try it on another PC with Windows 7 it shows up in Computer and it says within the box ,” System Reserved” .

Has anyone got any idea as to what that means , I have tried to go FILE FORMAT , but it says it can not do .

I am still waiting for a reply from the ebay member that sold it to me .

Cheers

spike

Spike1,

first thing:

DON'T PANIC

(assume the above to be written in large, friendly letters)

The "caddy" you are talking about is a USB external enclosure, right?

Usually you don't want to "format" a hard disk that you buy second hand, you want first to wipe it, to (re-) partition it, BEFORE attempting formatting it: it is very possible that the hard disk was partitioned/formatted with an incompatible kind of IPL/MBR or filesystem.

You should also test it.

There are different tools to perform the above, from XP easiest will probably be:

Wipe:

Roadkil's Disk Wipe:

http://www.roadkil.net/program.php/P14/Disk%20Wipe

Partition:

XP Disk Manager

Format:

XP Disk Manager

Test:

Hard disk Manufacturer's Utility

http://pcsupport.about.com/od/toolsofthetrade/tp/tophddiag.htm

HDDscan:

http://hddguru.com/

http://hddguru.com/software/2006.01.22-HDDScan/

jaclaz

You may also want to look at

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Hi jaclaz

The drive is not showing in the list that disc wipe brings up , the drive however is showing a usb icon at the bottom of my pc .

stuck now dont know what to do .

cheers

spike

Spike1,

first thing:

DON'T PANIC

(assume the above to be written in large, friendly letters)

The "caddy" you are talking about is a USB external enclosure, right?

Usually you don't want to "format" a hard disk that you buy second hand, you want first to wipe it, to (re-) partition it, BEFORE attempting formatting it: it is very possible that the hard disk was partitioned/formatted with an incompatible kind of IPL/MBR or filesystem.

You should also test it.

There are different tools to perform the above, from XP easiest will probably be:

Wipe:

Roadkil's Disk Wipe:

http://www.roadkil.net/program.php/P14/Disk%20Wipe

Partition:

XP Disk Manager

Format:

XP Disk Manager

Test:

Hard disk Manufacturer's Utility

http://pcsupport.about.com/od/toolsofthetrade/tp/tophddiag.htm

HDDscan:

http://hddguru.com/

http://hddguru.com/software/2006.01.22-HDDScan/

jaclaz