How do I know if a hard drive is hosed?

[microAmp]

Got a hard drive that in BIOS it shows 60 GB drive but also gives weird characters as the name. When I try to install Windows 2000, booting from the disc, and try to format it, it takes a long time. It also days "it may be damaged" at the end of the format. When I go to install W2K, it's shows the drive as a 300-400 GB hard drive.

I just want to be sure that this is a dead hard drive, never delt with one before since any brand always worked well for me. This is a Maxtor drive bought about 6-18 months ago, don't remember.

 

[Tripleshot]

Go to maxtor.com and dowload the drive utilty for that hdd. test with the utilty. Low level format if it will allow that. Too bad its out of warrenty. Maxtor has been shipping some very marginal drives lately. I am going to shift to seagate or western digital from now on.

 

[microAmp]

Thanks Tripleshot, will give that utility program a try. I forgot to add it doesn't show up in Windows 2000, when W2K is on another drive and the Maxtor is on slave.

I thought I heard something lately about Maxtor HDD, but wasn't too sure about that.

Edit: Checked to see if warranty was still available on Maxtors site, expired on 11/21/2004 a whole 6 days ago!

 

[WobbleWobble]

You may have to partition and assign the drive a drive letter in your other drive's Win2K installation.

Call Maxtor and see if they'll give you the warranty. They may have a grace period.

As for problems with Maxtor, I just don't have any problems with them. Now WD and Hitachi, my experiences with them haven't been that great. And I use a lot more Maxtor drives than the other two brands...

 

[wilenski]

Clear the Master Boot record use: fdisk/mbr. Then fdisk to delete and setup the partitions. Then Format the disk.

 

[wilenski]

Saying it's "hosted" and readst 300-400 GB. Reminds me of Win9x's drive space compression utility. The created drive has a host drive that is sometimes hidden. I'd do the: fdisk/mbr, then fdisk and delete any partitions found and define a usable partition, then format it. You will need to reboot the computer before you format it.