Formatting a 2TB hard drive: 12 hours later it is only 23% completed.

Page 1 of 2 12 LastLast

  1. stuart253
    Posts : 60
    Windows 7 professional 64 bit
       New #1

    Formatting a 2TB hard drive: 12 hours later it is only 23% completed.


    Hello,

    I am using a BlacX USB 3.0 hard drive docking station with a WD Caviar Black 2 TB internal hard drive.

    Do not have USB 3.0 on my machine yet, so I have the docking station connected via USB 2.0.

    After 12 hours, my drive is only 23% formatted. Is the Slowwwwww formatting of the 2 TB drive normal or is it because I am using USB 2.0 instead of USB 3.0?

    It I let this continue, is there a way to find out how many hours the process took?
    I have another 2 TB drive, which I will not format until I have purchased and installed a USB 3.0 PCIe card. Once installed, I want to compare the completion time using USB 2.0 ans USB 3.0.

    Thanks

    Stu
      My Computer
    Quote Quote

  3. pparks1
    Posts : 7,878
    Windows 7 Ultimate x64
       New #2

    Why not just perform a quick format. It should take care of that in about 5 minutes or less.
      My Computer
    Quote Quote

  4. DocBrown
    Posts : 9,606
    Win7 Enterprise, Win7 x86 (Ult 7600), Win7 x64 Ult 7600, TechNet RTM on AMD x64 (2.8Ghz)
       New #3

    I would even be tempted to connect it internally to a regular SATA port & try to format it.

    I have formatted several 1tb, 1.5tb, 2tb, Sata HD's via a USB 2.0 tri-head adapter & the most I think it took was about 30 minutes.
    Attached Thumbnails Attached Thumbnails Formatting a 2TB hard drive: 12 hours later it is only 23% completed.-tri_head_tb24611.jpg  
      My Computer
    Quote Quote

  6. whs
    Posts : 26,210
    Vista, Windows7, Mint Mate, Zorin, Windows 8
       New #4

    A full format on those big drives is murder - and not too healthy for the drive either. Quick format is the way to go. If you think there are bad sectors, you can run a chkdsk /f /r. That is not fast either but a lot faster than a full format.

    I hate those big drives. My two biggest are 640GB. But I prefer my smaller 500, 320 and 250 drives. Who has such masses of data anyhow. In addition, those big drives are slower than the smaller ones.

    I would stop it and go for a quick format.
      My Computer
    Quote Quote

  7. Cr00zng
    Posts : 568
    Windows 7 64-bit, Windows 8.1 64-bit, OSX El Capitan, Windows 10 (VMware)
       New #5

    I am curious...

    Awhile ego, I've NTFS formatted a 32Gbs USB stick on a USB 2.0 port, full not quick format. Even that has taken a long time; I don't recall the actual time, but it was long. Is there any reason why formatting a device on the USB port so slow?
      My Computer
    Quote Quote

  8. whs
    Posts : 26,210
    Vista, Windows7, Mint Mate, Zorin, Windows 8
       New #6

    There are 2 reasons. First USB2 is slow (480Mb/sec) and then those devices are slow too. I once did a full format of a 60GB Vertex SSD (out of curiosity) - it took only 8 minutes. Then I had problems with the Vertex. Send it back and got a new one. Lesson learned: Don't make unnecessary experiments with fragile hardware. LOL
      My Computer
    Quote Quote

  10. stuart253
    Posts : 60
    Windows 7 professional 64 bit
    Thread Starter
       New #7

    Cancelled format, but could not perform a quick format


    Hello,

    Which I attempted quick format, it fails. A Virtual Disdk Manager popup appeared, with message:

    The format did not complete successfully


    Stu
      My Computer
    Quote Quote

  11. Cr00zng
    Posts : 568
    Windows 7 64-bit, Windows 8.1 64-bit, OSX El Capitan, Windows 10 (VMware)
       New #8

    whs said:
    There are 2 reasons. First USB2 is slow (480Mb/sec) and then those devices are slow too. I once did a full format of a 60GB Vertex SSD (out of curiosity) - it took only 8 minutes. Then I had problems with the Vertex. Send it back and got a new one. Lesson learned: Don't make unnecessary experiments with fragile hardware. LOL
    Now you tell me, I guess my USB stick is dead now too...

    Nicely summarized whs...
      My Computer
    Quote Quote

  12. mjf
    Posts : 5,969
    Windows 7x64 Home Premium SP1
       New #9

    Take a look at the USB write speeds (post 12)
    USB Thumb Drive vs Portable HDD

    USB sticks are not SSDs.
      My Computer
    Quote Quote

  13. James Colbert
    Posts : 1,127
    Win7U 64 RTM
       New #10

    stuart253 said:
    Hello,

    Which I attempted quick format, it fails. A Virtual Disdk Manager popup appeared, with message:

    The format did not complete successfully


    Stu
    Try a 3rd party utility, such as can be found here:

    Compare Editions Partition Wizard

    The home edition is free (download link to left of camparison chart).

    I've found windows to be quite slow at formatting and generally opt to use other programs for that chore.

    James
      My Computer
    Quote Quote

 
Page 1 of 2 12 LastLast

  Related Discussions
Formatting Hard drive
in General Discussion

Purchased new comp without operating system, after installing my own Windows operating system found they had sent me the wrong spec of computer. Now have to return for correct comp spec to be sent to me. My question how do I format the hard drive to remove windows and return the comp in the clean...
Hi all I got a trojan on my PC , did a full scan with malware bytes and it found some files which where deleted. the damage done was quite extensive , many directories had access denied , there was a strange user account which I removed , and many directories were shared , and some directories...
Formatting second hard drive
in General Discussion

Hello there. Wasn't sure where to post this, so if it's in the wrong area, sorry. I bought a Dell Precision 380 Workstation Desktop about a year ago that had two WD 160GB hard drives, one of which had Win XP installed and the other was blank but formatted to NTFS. I installed Windows 7 Home...
I'm formatting a hardware raid5 drive using the drive management mmc snap-in, and it's taking forever. What is making matters worse is that it doesn't show the percentage completed, it just says "ntfs, formatting" on the screen. Is there a command line or other tool to show me how far along the...
Hard Drive Formatting
in Hardware & Devices

Good afternoon everyone, I have a very simple question as I have heard numerous different answers. If I have to reformat my hard drive many times because of a virus, is this going to cause problems on my hard drive? Will it wear out sooner because of those formats? Thanks everyone!
Our Sites
Site Links
About Us
Windows 7 Forums is an independent web site and has not been authorized, sponsored, or otherwise approved by Microsoft Corporation. "Windows 7" and related materials are trademarks of Microsoft Corp.

 © Designer Media Ltd
All times are GMT -5. The time now is 14:52.
Find Us