HDD bricked?

[darunium]

Hi All,

I'm building a new system, but some parts have arrived before others. I got the HDDs a couple weeks ago (WD Caviar Black 640GB and 1TB), so I want to make sure they're looking good before it gets tough to RMA them. So I just put the 640GB in an enclosure, and I don't *think* that my computer can detect it. I say think because of the following

A) the enclosure itself is detected, same as it always is, as a SATA to USB bridge. Usually, when I have a HDD in there within the SATA to USB bridge (treated like another computer), it has the drive.

B) When I connected it, a driver installed and it said the device is ready to use (I've already used the enclosure before with this computer).

I don't think it's a problem with the enclosure, since I just tried another HDD in it. One thing I considered is that this enclosure (a couple years old now, an Eagle Consus) doesn't support storage as large as 640GB, but the one I just had in it was a 500GB HDD, so I felt it was unlikely that that would be the cutoff, or that if it is that it wouldn't recognize the drive at all.

In either case, is the drive bricked/should I RMA it? Or are there things I can/should try?

Thanks!

 

[Elixer]

Um, did you format the HD ?
If so, then put it on an internal SATA connection on your main machine, and see if it works then (assuming you formmated it).
If not, then RMA it.

 

[RebateMonger]

As noted, go into "Disk Management" and intialize the disk, partition it, and format the partition. This can be done from the USB housing.

 

[darunium]

Ah thank you, Disk Management does recognize it and indeed it is neither initialized or formatted. It's strange I've never had to go through disk management to have a HD formatted, it used to just prompt me on its own.

Is there any reason not to format it now, to wait for the rig to be built and do it all then? Or should I just format it now and run HD Tune to make sure there's no bad sectors right out of the box? Is it better to format it now for any reason?

Thanks!