My hard drive has been formatting over 12 hours

[Codeloss]

And it is only 10% done.

I'm not really sure what the problem is, but my system was acting pretty funky yesterday. I hadn't rebooted in a few days, and I had to to install this new 200 gb hard drive I got from Dell. The problem was, after I would boot back up, windows would act normal for a little while, then within a minute or so, it would slow to a halt... no BSOD, and not frozen... just... extremely... slow. Also, Norton Anti-Virus had auto-protect turned off (which I did not remember doing), and trying to turn it on would result in the computer slowing to a halt. After it did this a few times, I booted into safe mode and did a virus scan. Nothing turned up. I rebooted normally, and everything seemed "cool" all of a sudden. So I went about things normally, and started formatting my new hard drive. That was yesterday around 10 PM. Its still going, and by my estimate it will be done in 5 days. This does not seem like normal behavior to me. But, everything else seems to be working. I guess my next step is to try formatting the hard drive in another computer and see if its faster. But anyway, does this situation sound familiar to anyone? Just thought I'd check...

Thanks.

 

[microAmp]

Only things I can think of, is the IDE cable plugged in completely?

Maybe DMA isn't enabled on it?

It only takes me a hour or so, IIRC, to format a 120G HDD.

 

[Zepper]

I doubt that such a large drive can be partitioned and formatted in the normal way. I don't think many current BIOS directly supports that large a drive, it would have to have 48-bit LBA support.
. You will need to use the installation software that came with it, or DL from mfr's web site. I would suggest partitioning into no less than 3 partitions.
Here is what Maxtor has to say on the issue:
.
. The full capacity of ATA drives larger than 137GB is not recognized by the operating system.

Solution
Currently, there are three options to remedy the 137 Gigabyte barrier. Failure to implement one of the following installation options will result in data loss when trying to access the hard disk beyond 137 Gigabytes.

Installation Option 1. Upgrade the operating system to either Windows 2000 with Service Pack 3 (or newer) or Windows XP with Service Pack 1 (or newer) and download the Maxtor Big Drive Enabler software patch. The Maxtor Big Drive Enabler, once executed, will update the Windows registry for large drive support.

Installation Option 2. Download and install the Intel Application accelerator. The Intel Application Accelerator provides 48-Bit LBA compliant ATA/ATAPI controller drivers (IntelATA.mpd) and replaces the Windows 98/Me, 2000 and XP ATA controller drivers (ESDI_506.PDR). Intel is the only chipset manufacturer that we are aware of that offers a compatible controller driver for Windows .

The Intel Application Accelerator only supports the following chipsets: 810, 810E, 810E2, 810L, 815, 815EP, 815G, 815EG, 815P, 820, 820E, 840, 845, 845E, 845G, 845GE, 845GL, 845GV, 845PE, 850, 850E, 860. The Intel Application Accelerator can be obtained at http://www.intel.com/support/chipsets/iaa/. If you have an unsupported chipset or do not want to upgrade the operating system then try the next solution.

Installation Option 3: Attach the large hard drive to an add-in Ultra ATA PCI adapter card with a 48-Bit LBA compliant BIOS and controller driver. The adapter card bypasses the system BIOS and operating system?s controller driver and uses its own BIOS and controller driver.

Using an IDE ATA/ATAPI controller that has a 48-Bit LBA compatible controller driver will allow safe use of large drives beyond the previous limits of 137 GB capacity. Additional controllers that do not have 48-Bit compliant drivers cannot safely access drives larger than 137 GB. A compatible card such as the Maxtor Ultra ATA/133 PCI for Windows and Sonnet Tempo ATA/133 PCI Card for MACs can be purchased at http://www.maxstore.com (U.S. only) or at a local retailer.

**For detailed step-by-step instructions please click here.

.bh.
:sun:

 

[videobruce]

Do you REALLY need a 200 GB partition??
Break it up!

 

[redbeard1]

Is it possible that you have a problem caused by MS hotfix Q811493? It slows things down quite a bit on some machines. Though it was pulled from updates, maybe you got it before then.

Pcworld

Another article

Neowin

 

[Codeloss]

Thanks for the replies, everyone... I guess my motherboard doesn't support big hard drives. I tried the included PCI IDE card, and bada-bing, its formatting at normal speed. Hopefully, everything is cool now... so far, so good.

One last thing, is there any disadvantage to a 200 GB partition? I actually do NEED that much space. I do a lot of work with video, and occasionally need to render uncompressed files that can be rather large... sometimes more than 20-30 gig. For working with a lot of these files, one large partition just seems more convenient to me.

 

[Zepper]

If you were working with the usual mix of file sizes and a very large number of files, then there would be advantages: less wasted space and quicker searches through the gigantic FAT files.
. But when you are working with a relatively small number of very large files, then there isn't so much of an advantage.
. So for you one large partition will be the way to fly.
.bh.
:beer: time!

 

[WarCon]

Originally posted by: redbeard1
Is it possible that you have a problem caused by MS hotfix Q811493? It slows things down quite a bit on some machines. Though it was pulled from updates, maybe you got it before then.

Pcworld

Another article

Neowin

I knew there was a bad patch, but I didn't know which one. My system's responsiveness slowly went away after one of those automatic updates and I didn't know which one until now. It had gotten so bad I was considering reloading (5-10 sec pauses opening My Computer or any file folder the first time it had been opened). I just uninstalled that patch, but it warned that a bunch of software might not work if I uninstall it. I did it anyway.......... Dang virus like patch. Does Microsoft do any product testing on these patches before their release into the wild...

 

[idgaf13]

Smaller partitions will conserve more space.
size the partitions as to the size of your work ,
what you are willing to lose when the gremlins come calling.