SATA HDD Issue

[cargo0d]

Hello everyone,

I have just received a SATA Deskstar 7K1000.B that I purchased new from Tiger Direct. While formatting the partition into MS-DOS compliant and using Disk Utility on a Mac 1.24Ghz running OS X 10.4.11, I noticed that it took an unusually long time to complete the operation. Upon completion 233 Mbs remain unformatted. I also reformatted the same Hitachi into Mac OS X Extended with the same results...233 megabytes of unusable hard drive space.

I also own the 1st generation SATA Deskstar 7K1000 that formatted quite easily into MS_DOS leaving only 28 kilobytes unformatted.

Both drives were formatted and are used externally.

Why could this be? Is it possible that the 7K1000.B has 233 Mbs of bad sectors on it? I want to be confident that this is not a major issue, before I consider returning the drive.

Thank you for any help you can provide me.
Everyone have a great afternoon!

 

[sickmacdoc]

Well when you talk about that much unformatted space and then combine it with the note about the excessive length of time to format it I would have to agree that there were a pretty fair number of sectors marked bad and reassigned. The hard call is if that is excessive and whether it constitutes a prediction of more developing. I can only say that if an exchange were possible, I think I would do it for peace of mind if nothing else as it is not really normal.

 

[maestrokev]

have you tried deleting all partitions and recreating each partition? which partition map scheme are you using?

if this doesn't fix, then possible you have a bad drive

 

[SmurfBoxMasta]

which partition map scheme are you using?

On a PPC G4 running 10.4, APM would be the only one available

OP, what size are these drives ? Typically, the larger the drive, the more overhead space that is reserved for the formatting....... ie my 80 GB backup drive formats out at 75GB, but my 160 GB boot drive formats out at 149.8GB....

 

[patrick0brien]

Let's also not forget the marketing/tech converstion

1tb to a marketer is 1000GB

1tb to reality is 1024gb

so if you bought a 1tb drive, it's actual capacity is in the 900's somewhere.

 

[maestrokev]

My 5 Hitachi 7K1000.B 1TB drives format to 931.5GB total capacity.

 

[sickmacdoc]

On a PPC G4 running 10.4, APM would be the only one available

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No bug deal of course but just to be clear the APM restriction only applies to the ability to use the drive in question as a boot drive on a PowerPC based system. GUID can be used as a non-bootable drive on any Mac running 10.4 or later.