New 500 Gig WD 5000KS

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Kroz

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Jul 13, 2002
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Hello;

Yesterday I bought a new Western Digital 500 Gig Hard drive (WD5000KS) and plugged it into my system. Here are my specs:

Computer:
Operating System Microsoft Windows XP Professional
OS Service Pack Service Pack 2
DirectX 4.09.00.0904 (DirectX 9.0c)
CPU Type Intel Pentium 4, 2400 MHz (18 x 133)
Motherboard Name Abit IC7-G (5 PCI, 1 AGP Pro, 4 DDR DIMM, Audio, Gigabit LAN, IEEE-1394)
Motherboard Chipset Intel Canterwood i875P
System Memory 1536 MB (DDR SDRAM)
Video Adapter RADEON 9600 SERIES - Secondary (128 MB)
Monitor ViewSonic VG800-2 [18" LCD] (A26033800119)
IDE Controller Intel(R) 82801EB Ultra ATA Storage Controllers - 24D1
IDE Controller Intel(R) 82801EB Ultra ATA Storage Controllers - 24DB
SCSI/RAID Controller SCSI/RAID Host Controller
SCSI/RAID Controller Silicon Image SiI 3112 SATARaid Controller
Disk Drive Maxtor 6Y160P0
Disk Drive WDC WD2500JB-98GVA0
Disk Drive WDC WD5000AAKS-00TMA0
Optical Drive LITE-ON DVDRW SOHW-1693S
Optical Drive PLEXTOR CD-R PX-W4824A

When I booted Windows it detected the hard drive and installed the drivers for the SATA controller. I loaded up the Disk Management system thru the control panel and sure enough the hard drive was there. I split the drive in two (232.88 Gigs) and told the computer too format the partitions as NTFS. That was 7 hours ago and they are both at 50% formatted now?!?!

So my question is (since this is my first SATA hard drive) how long should it take to format a 500 gig hard drive? Also I cable I bought to hook up the hard drive was labeled as an SATA I Cable. The hard drive is hooked up to an SATA I controller. The hard drive is an SATA II drive. Will this cause an issue?

Kroz
 
The quick format should only take a few minutes ;) I honestly have not done a long format in awhile, 7 hours seems pretty long though I would have thought upwards of 1-2 hours max.

The SATA II vs SATA I should not matter, the cable should be just fine.
 
Hey eth00;

I always thought you should do a full format on a new drive? Maybe I'm just old school (or just old), I remember formating my first hard drive. It was a MASSIVE IBM 10 Meg hard drive. :D

Kroz
 
Usually what I'll do is use WD's HDD diagnostic tool on new drives (stored on my Ultimate Boot CD). If it passes the quick and extended test, I'll just do the "Quick Format". You're right, it shouldn't take 7 hours and only be 50% done.

I'm curious though how long it would take if you only formatted one partition at a time? Perhaps the way the drive was split, some of the "formatted area" fell on the same platter as the other partition and the read/write heads are fighting each other going back and forth to complete the job? Just a thought.

I guess I'd try formatting only one partition at a time. Now if you had two separate hard drives then it should be ok to format them both at once, but not two partitions.
 
I always used to as well, I remember the 10mb drive then upgrading to the HUGE 20mb drive that would be fine for years...thats the last time any promises on tech were made :)


I honestly don't know if you need to do a long format nowadays, I have not for a few years and have not encountered any problems.
 
_Durandal_ said:
Perhaps the way the drive was split, some of the "formatted area" fell on the same platter as the other partition and the read/write heads are fighting each other going back and forth to complete the job?
Click to expand...

This is my guess as well.
 
If its a brand new drive going in my computer, I do a full format and then partition however I want. My drives only took about an hour to format. I'd stop the formatting if you can and do a full format with no partitions. Then partition as you want.
 
hity645 said:
If its a brand new drive going in my computer, I do a full format and then partition however I want. My drives only took about an hour to format. I'd stop the formatting if you can and do a full format with no partitions. Then partition as you want.
Click to expand...

It sounds like the OP did all the formatting/partitioning in Windows. I would guess you need to use 3rd-party SW to change partition size after formatting.
 
Mav451 said:
It sounds like the OP did all the formatting/partitioning in Windows. I would guess you need to use 3rd-party SW to change partition size after formatting.
Click to expand...

Or Just do like the guy said, then delete the big partition, and do a quick-format on the two smaller ones.
 
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