"Windows cannot format the hard drive" error

[hedniskhjartad]

I bought a sleek, shiny new external WD hard drive yesterday.

It had FAT32, so I tried to format it into NTFS.. it took a solid 2 hours (which is expected, it's a big drive) and close to the end (or maybe at the very end, I was around but not in front of the PC) , it said "windows cannot format the hard drive". So I formatted it again with NTFS, using the quick method, which was successful. I was curious about why that happened, and I went into Disk Management, and tried to do a slow format from there too, but the same thing happened, and this time it said the format was "RAW" . Then I got stubborn, and put it on slow format one more, and it went right through.

Is this cause for concern? I felt like going and exchanging it, but I want to know if this could be a potential problem in the future.

 

[eyec]

did you use the Western Digital Tools disc that came with it?

I have found that it does a better job than Windows

 

[hedniskhjartad]

Good idea...never checked the box to see if it came with a cd... d'oh.

Although I just went to the WD website and looked up the tools available for download, and the only things they had for my drive was a FAT32 formatting tool, and a diagnostic tool; which doesn't help since I want to use NTFS. When I get home, I can see if I have a disk, and plug it in to see if i can find any additional tools. Although it is NTFS now, and running properly, i'm just concerned about it turning into an issue later.