Strange formatting problem on ext HDD

[Gordon]

Not sure whether this is a hardware or XP problem, hence the crosspost.

I have an external Firewire HDD of 80 GB. It currently has one partition of
32 GB formatted in FAT32, with the rest free space. Using Disk management I
created another FAT32 partition of 20 GB, and set it to format. That was at
9 pm last night! It's still sitting there at 9 am this morning saying that
it's formatting. I've never seen this before. a) how do I stop it and b) why
is it taking this long to not format?

Thanks

 

[Guest]

You can use Task Manager to stop formating. Look like your HDD have some
hardware issue.

 

[Anna]

Not sure whether this is a hardware or XP problem, hence the crosspost.

I have an external Firewire HDD of 80 GB. It currently has one partition
of 32 GB formatted in FAT32, with the rest free space. Using Disk
management I created another FAT32 partition of 20 GB, and set it to
format. That was at 9 pm last night! It's still sitting there at 9 am this
morning saying that it's formatting. I've never seen this before. a) how
do I stop it and b) why is it taking this long to not format?

Thanks

Gordon:
We'll assume you have good & sufficient reasons for creating FAT32
partitions on your external HDD rather than NTFS ones.

It's probably a good bet at this point to simply shut down the machine and
start over with DM. If there's a valid unformatted partition re that 20 GB
formerly unallocated space, delete it and just start over to create another
partition and format same.

If no partition currently exists, then again - use DM to create the
partition & format same.

Sometimes the partitioning/formatting process just doesn't "take" initially.
And a repeated attempt (sometimes more than one) will accomplish the
objective.

If still no go, you may want to remove the HDD from the enclosure (should
that be practical) and install it as an internal HDD and go through the
partitioning/formatting exercise again.

As Jagadeesha has indicated it's possible there may be an issue with your
HDD itself so it probably would be wise to check it out with a diagnostic
utility generally available from the drive's manufacturer.
Anna

 

[Guest]

There were messages in other newsgroups that firewire HDD
support in Windows is less than reliable.
All kinds of weird behaviour and even data loss may occur.
So be warned...

--PA

 

[Gordon]

Not sure whether this is a hardware or XP problem, hence the crosspost.

I have an external Firewire HDD of 80 GB. It currently has one partition
of 32 GB formatted in FAT32, with the rest free space. Using Disk
management I created another FAT32 partition of 20 GB, and set it to
format. That was at 9 pm last night! It's still sitting there at 9 am this
morning saying that it's formatting. I've never seen this before. a) how
do I stop it and b) why is it taking this long to not format?

Thanks

Interesting this one. I managed to get the critical data off it, and then
deleted partitions. I could create and format a single NTFS partition of up
to 45 GB from within Disk Management. Anything bigger than that, or if I
tried to create and format a second partition, failed.
I booted up with a live Linux CD, and lo! and behold, it partitioned and
formatted the whole disk! The tentative result is, it's all back up and
running properly! very strange! A problem with XP Disk management I wonder?
(After installing IE7 perhaps?)