I'm in a very odd situation that I think the HDD is toast... but I need a second opinion because I've tried just about everything I know and it will not kick into life. that makes matters even worse. The BIOS shows the channel and port and detects the HDD. DiskPart can see the HDD as well and I run a quick format which was successful...? This is where I get lost. If DiskPart can see the HDD and you can format the HDD than, there is communication via data cable and PWR to the HDD is there otherwise you wouldn't be able to format the HDD would you.
There are things that I haven't tried yet... running Seatools in DOS such better for fault finding. changed the data cable and the PWR SATA cables. any other suggestions would be appreciated
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Microsoft Security Essentials and Malwarebytes Premium
Browser
Pale Moon
Other Info
All fans PWM; speeds at idle: CPU circa 500 rpm; intake circa 600 rpm; exhaust circa 600 rpm; CPU temps 27 idle and 47 C load in a warm room (27 C/81 F) when running Intel Extreme Tuning Utility stress test.
Is this a secondary drive, or is it a primary drive that you are trying to install the OS on?
My (limited) understanding is that Windows 'initializes' a disk by rewriting the MBR. So if Windows reports that it can't initialize the disk then that means it can't find a valid MBR to rewrite - for whatever reason.
One reason may be that the MBR is not in the correct location on the disk (which is normally on the 2 byte end marker - 0x55 0xAA - reportedly) and this is all that is necessary to throw Windows into a snit.
The solution may be in doing either a full format, or to wipe the drive (a process that writes all zeros across the drive) and then doing the full format. That should create a new MBR in the correct location for Windows and allow it to be initialized.
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My Computer
Computer type
PC/Desktop
Computer Manufacturer/Model Number
Home Built - Jan 2013
OS
Windows 7 64 Bit Home Premium SP1
CPU
i7-3820
Motherboard
Asus P9X79-PRO - Bios 4608
Memory
GSkill F3-14900CL9Q - 16GB
Graphics Card(s)
EVGA GeForce GTX660 - Driver 352.86
Sound Card
On board Realtek ALC898
Monitor(s) Displays
Acer S271HL
Screen Resolution
1920 x 1080
Hard Drives
#1- Samsung 840 Pro Series
#2- Western Digital WD1002FAEX Sata3 Black
#3- Western Digital WD1002FAEX Sata3 Black
PSU
Corsair CMPSU-850TX-V2 - 850 watt (by Seasonic)
Case
Corsair Obsidian 550D
Cooling
Standard 3 120mm case fans, Cooler Master Hyper 212 EVO
Download, install and run HDD LLF Low Level Format Tool -http://hddguru.com/software/HDD-LLF-Low-Level-Format-Tool/
This will zerofill each and every sector of your HDD and reinitialise the Hard disk to the factory condition. (Depending on the capacity of the HDD, this process may take quite sometime. Be patient and do not abort it midway through.)
