MyBook won't format

August 11, 2008 8:21 PM

Why can't I format my new MyBook USB external hard drive?

My computer is Windows XP Professional and I just bought a brand new Western Digital 500GB MyBook Essential external hard drive and I can't get it to format. What am I doing wrong? Is there a way to get it to work with my computer? I've tried three of the four USB drives on my computer and I keep getting an error that reads, "Windows cannot complete the reformat of the drive," or something similiar. This is very frustrating since it's taken about six hours for these failures.

posted by NoMich to computers & internet (17 comments total)

Quick question, are you formatting as FAT32 or NTFS?
posted by deezil at 8:30 PM on August 11, 2008

Have you tried a different cable?
posted by sharkfu at 8:33 PM on August 11, 2008

NTFS.

No, I haven't tried another cable. I'll try a different one now. If I have one, of course.
posted by NoMich at 8:35 PM on August 11, 2008

Oh, and it's NTFS 'cause that's the only option I'm given.
posted by NoMich at 8:37 PM on August 11, 2008

Yeah. Just making sure you weren't trying as FAT32, cause you can't do drives over 32GB due to a limitation in Windows.

Let me think on this.
posted by deezil at 8:43 PM on August 11, 2008

Tried a new cable, but keep getting the same result.
It's frustrating because there's no documentation in the box and the error message is generic. There's no reason given, just that it can't do nothin' for me.
posted by NoMich at 8:45 PM on August 11, 2008

Try the reformat from inside Disk Management. Right click on My Computer, go to Manage, in the window that pops up go to Disk Management, and try to remove the current partition / format the drive from this area. Since it's a Western Digital, and there are programs that auto-run on those drives, also make sure that those programs aren't open anywhere. Maybe try a reboot in Safe Mode and see if that accomplishes anything as well.
posted by deezil at 8:49 PM on August 11, 2008

Volume: F:, Layout: Partition; Type: Basic; File System: [it's blank, C drive says NTSF]; Status: Healthy [C drive says "Healthy (System)"]; Capacity: 465.76 GB; Free Space: 465.75 GB; % Free: 100; Fault Tolerance: No; Overhead: No
posted by NoMich at 8:59 PM on August 11, 2008

Are you using an administrator account or a user account? I think that in XP Pro you may have to be logged in as administrator in order to format a drive.
posted by Class Goat at 9:24 PM on August 11, 2008

If you prefer FAT32, you can break the limit by formatting with a different utility. Windows can read and write large FAT32 partitions, it just can't format them.

If your drive is too large for that utility, you can either format in linux with it's own FAT formatting utilities, or use this, which is less pretty, but more flexible.

BTW: The actual limit for FAT32 is 2 TB. Not that I'd suggest using it for anything that big is a good idea...
posted by shepd at 10:17 PM on August 11, 2008

Stay away from MyBook drives. I've heard all kinds of bad things about them being difficult to format, especially on Macs, and the included sharing software is DRMed out the ass and won't allow sharing of any audio or video files (although you can just set the drive up as a Samba share or whatever instead). I'd take the drive back and buy a Seagate FreeAgent. I've got three of them and they're great.
posted by DecemberBoy at 11:24 PM on August 11, 2008

I have a 750mb myBook, and have had no problems with it whatsoever.

Admittedly, I did not use the software that came pre-installed on it; in fact, I removed all the software. I don't care if the button on front kicks off any kind of backup software.

I saved the software to another drive "just in case", then reformatted the drive using NTFS.

I did have to use an Admin account; a simple user account got me "access denied".
posted by dwbrant at 5:51 AM on August 12, 2008

I am the Admin on this computer.
I just tried formatting the drive on my wife's laptop, but ran into the same problems.
posted by NoMich at 7:06 AM on August 12, 2008

I think you should return the drive to the store. It's probably just a bad drive. It's especially odd the drive didn't come with documentation. Perhaps it's a resealed return that didn't work to begin with?
posted by sharkfu at 8:34 AM on August 12, 2008

Why did you try to format it? It is supposed to come from the store ready to plug in and be used as is. If it wasn't working out of the box, it was broken, and even if you could format it, you shouldn't trust it. Return now.
posted by nomisxid at 8:56 AM on August 12, 2008

nomisxid: When I explore my computer, I see the new drive listed, but when I click on it, I get message telling me that I need to format the drive. Sounds like I need to take yours and sharkfu's advice and return the drive.
posted by NoMich at 8:58 AM on August 12, 2008

I exchanged for a new one and I am now golden.
posted by NoMich at 11:09 AM on August 12, 2008