"bad disk" and "a device which does not exist was specified"

[postcd]

Hi, i have sold the working HDD and the buyer says the drive is unstable making non standard sounds, once he was able to see the drive and begin formating, which not completed due to "Windows was unable to complete the format". Drive sometimes not appeared in "This computer", showing as unknown and uninitialized in Drive manager and unable to initialize due to not exist (the error is non english language WIndows). The Minitool partition manager shown "Bad drive".

I advised to remove some drives / use verified working power and data cable to ensure drive has enough power supply and working cable.

Then i advised diskpart (open administrator cmd prompt and type diskpart), cleaning the disk, here is the resulting error:

"a device which does not exist was specified" 0 B disk

i also found that some people advise (not for this particular issue) diskpart commands "clean all" instead of "clean" and then:
convert gpt
create partition primary
format fs=ntfs quick
(but i have not yet seen result of above commands)

I also found chkdsk Z: /f /r /x

Other approach is Minitool partition Wizard SW, Disk, Rebuild MBR (not tried yet)

Other suggestions i found was to open Device manager and update relevant drivers.

One more thing i read about is to switch from AHCI to RAID in BIOS and cleaning the drive in that mode and then switch back. (source)

I also got idea of rewriting whole drive somehow (have to get into the stage where drive is recognized by the OS) so possible bad sectors gets marked as such - http://www.lowlevelformat.info/zero-filling.aspx

What do You suggest, or which steps in which order to do to find the exact cause please?

 

[drescherjm]

This could mean the drive was damaged in shipping.

 

[drescherjm]

What do You suggest, or which steps in which order to do to find the exact cause please?

Maybe start with CrystalDiskInfo. If it says any status other than "Good" its almost certainly a bad drive.

 

[postcd]

Maybe start with CrystalDiskInfo. If it says any status other than "Good" its almost certainly a bad drive.

i have send this advice to the buyer, hopefuly that SW will detect the drive and he will try it.

This could mean the drive was damaged in shipping.

I think that the drive was protected by antistatic bag and multiple layers of the bubble clingfilm so even if dropped , it should be OK.
I hope someone can share some steps to do after which we can be pretty much sure it really is damaged and should be trashed/refurbrished.

 

[JustinC]

I think drescherjm is right. The drive may have gotten damaged in shipping. You will have to use a utility to identify the bad sectors and mark them as such which would keep the data stored on it from using it.

 

[likeman]

if its been seen as 0MB sure seems like a failed drive (any clicking noises would say drive was damaged in transit)

is it a seagate drive ?

 

[Zepher]

Is the drive one of the 8-14TB WD Easystore/Elements/My Books externals that was removed from the case and installed in the PC.
If it is, it would need to have the 3.3v Pin 3 mod done it it.

 

[warhol76]

HDD making sounds is never a good thing...