Second Hard Drive won't format?

[defgimp]

Hello

Recently purchased and have just installed a Hitachi 1tb drive. (Went with this one as it was a good price and the Iomega portable I have has a Hitachi drive in it which has worked floorlessly (touch wood) from day one, all be it a 2.5" and not the 3.5" I've just installed).

My current hard drive is only 250gb which is now almost full, mainly photos/videos/music and the odd game, hence a bigger drive just for storage.

It wouldn't show up, so entered set up and turned the sata port on and it now appears under disk management, etc.

Wouldn't show in my computer, so had a trawl round and came across an article about this on here. Did all what was suggested and it now shows, but I can't use it as it's not formatted.

Everything goes fine until the final part of the partioning/set up when you simply format the drive

It starts off ok, but keeps stalling/hanging/freezing at 13%

Had another trawl round on here and the interweb but couldn't seem to find a simple answer. (Probably can't see the wood for trees?)

My pc is a Dell, which has been fine, but it's getting on 5 years old now so don't know if there in lies the problem, so to speak?

Thanks in advance for any advice or pointers

[glc]

Download and run the Hitachi Drive Fitness Test.

[defgimp]

Thanks for the response.

Haven't actually got that far yet?

After posting on here, went for anthor trawl round and came across someone recommending a quick format as opposed to a full one.

Did a quick format, which took all of 3 seconds, and the drive is now working fine and accepting files, etc.

I'm now worried that at some point it will fail as I haven't done a full format.

I haven't put anything on my new drive that I can't live without if you feel it's worth pursuing a full format or is a quick format fine for just everyday storage?

Thanks again

[glc]

I would run those diagnostics. If there's something wrong with the drive, it would be best to know NOW so you can get it exchanged under warranty.

http://www.hitachigst.com/hdd/support/download.htm

Drive Fitness Test

Version 4.15

The Drive Fitness Test (DFT) quickly and reliably tests SCSI, IDE and SATA drives. The DFT analyze function performs read tests without overwriting customer data. (Note: other DFT restoration utilities may overwrite data.)

Downloads
To run the DFT, you must download the appropriate creator or image and create a self-booting media.

You may create the media under Windows (using the Windows OS version) or Linux (using the binary image), but you must start your system with the DOS-bootable diskette to run DFT.
Drive Fitness Test User's Guide (426 K)
Guide to using DFT
Diskette creator for Windows OS (2,130 K)
Creates self-booting media to run DFT | Read Me | Having trouble creating the bootable diskette?
Binary diskette image for non-Windows OS (1,440 K)
Creates self-booting media to run DFT | Read Me
CD image (2,720 K)
Creates bootable CD for Linux, Windows and other operating systems ( requires CD-RW drive and software).

Download the diskette creator if you have a floppy drive, or the CD image if you do not.