My HDD won't Format!

[krewelement394]

hi, i just got a HDD today, i ordered it online, i connected my HDD to my iMac and i had it format. Later on today, i had to use it on my Windows machine, and it asked me to format it which i did, but now my HDD is messed up i think. It will no longer format and when i open disk utility it reads it, but as i try to format it formats and then i try to check for disk errors, it gives me errors, adn then it asks me to repair the disk. i do, but my iMac tells me it cannot repair the disk. i tried using the OSX installation disc as well. i even tried formatting the HDD on my Windows using the My computer> Manage Disk....no good... i get a message saying it was unsuccessful.

what's wrong and can this be fixed?

 

[skorpien]

Are you using GUID Partition Table when you format it in OS X?

Also, do not keep formatting it when switching back and forth. Either use FAT32 which can be read by both Windows and OS X (but has a 4GB filesize limit), or use NTFS (Windows) or HFS+ (Mac) and use third party software on the other system to be able to access the hard drive.

The second post in this thread explains it in detail.

 

[krewelement394]

No i am using GUID...i think the thing was that i checked to see if the HDD was ok because i know that sometimes they get dammaged on the way (via postage) i checked with my imac because it was on at the time. the HDD was meant to be used on my windows computer, which is why i cheked there second. i downloaded a program for windows by western digital, which is the brand of my HDD, the program is a lifeguard diagnostics program, i tried writing the zeros, but it failed... what now?


UPDATE: i tried using the zero method format with my iMac, it tok about 1 hour. for a short time the disc is mounted, but then when i click on verify permissions, it gets dismounted and i get a message that says " this disk needs to be repaired" i click on repair disk, but then i get "Invalid BS_jmpBoot in boot block: eaf990" as one of the errors, and i also get a pop up window error saying: " Disk Utility stopped repairing disk, Disk Utility can’t repair this disk. Back up as many of your files as possible, reformat the disk, and restore your backed-up files."

 

[skorpien]

It sounds like you may have received a faulty disk. Try to see if you can get it exchanged. I'm really not sure what else you can try to fix it, or if it would even be worthwhile (or how reliable it will be).