External HDD as corrupt as a politician

[Annuit Coeptis]

I have a 150 GB WD HD and it's very corrupt. It used to just not show up in the windows explorer directory but it shows up in the disk management section of the computer management console in Vista.

I tried reformatting it to a dynamic type disk but there was an error and now disk management says it's uninitialized. When I try to initialize it it says the drive cannot find the sector requested.

All in all, this HD is very corrupt.

Any suggestions? Is there any program that will just reformat everything? I don't care about the data on the disk I just need it to work.

Please and thank you.

[J4P4NM4N]

It is probably corrupt as in physically corrupted. One thing that you should try is stick in the Vista DVD and boot to it, then head to the System Recovery Options menu. There, you should be able to achieve a command prompt. At the prompt, go for:

Code:

chkdsk /r

This looks for inconsistencies on the surface of the disk, thereby making it a more robust scan than the "chkdsk /f" we usually use.

It still may not make the drive usable, depending on how bad the damage is. Btw, do you hear odd noises or clicks when it starts up?


EDIT: I'm sorry, I just realized there is no OS on this drive, it is just external. But my instructions still stand, you just may be able to run "chkdsk /r" inside your OS at a normal (or elevated) command prompt. You will need to specify a drive letter in your command, though.

[Annuit Coeptis]

It is probably corrupt as in physically corrupted. One thing that you should try is stick in the Vista DVD and boot to it, then head to the System Recovery Options menu. There, you should be able to achieve a command prompt. At the prompt, go for:

Code:

chkdsk /r

This looks for inconsistencies on the surface of the disk, thereby making it a more robust scan than the "chkdsk /f" we usually use.

It still may not make the drive usable, depending on how bad the damage is. Btw, do you hear odd noises or clicks when it starts up?


EDIT: I'm sorry, I just realized there is no OS on this drive, it is just external. But my instructions still stand, you just may be able to run "chkdsk /r" inside your OS at a normal (or elevated) command prompt. You will need to specify a drive letter in your command, though.

The external drive has not been assigned a drive letter yet. The Disk Management Console will not allow me to assign a letter until I initialize the disk. I tried initializing the disk again and this time the message box said "Incorrect Function".

I wanted to try chkdsk but since the HD has no letter I can't do it. I'm thinking the HD might actually be physically corrupt like you said. When I plug it in I hear the platter spin then the actuator arm clicks a few times then the platter and the actuator go off.

I'm willing to declare the HD broken unless you have any other suggestions.

[J4P4NM4N]

I'm willing to declare the HD broken unless you have any other suggestions.

I'm with you on that one.

[4u111]

There's a program called "kill disk" and you can simply kill all information on it and clean sectors and wipe all free spaces. In other words, you get a new hard disk as "just purchased" when you use "kill disk".

[ktmrider530]

There's a program called "kill disk" and you can simply kill all information on it and clean sectors and wipe all free spaces. In other words, you get a new hard disk as "just purchased" when you use "kill disk".

And how do you suggest he run this program?