I'm trying to format my hard drive with the NTFS file system. I did the reboot with the Windows system CD, went through setup, deleted the old partition, re-partitioned the drive, and then chose to install windows on the new (raw) partition. Then it goes to the format screen where I get to choose between A) NTFS Format (Quick) or B) NTFS Regular. First of all, does anyone know the difference between these two options? Secondly, when I choose to format with the regular, more thorough option (I'm guessing), it does its thing and when it gets to 100% after about an hour, I recieve the following message:

"Setup was unable to format the partition. The disk may be damaged. Make sure your drive is switched on and properly connected to your computer. If the disk is a SCSI disk, make sure your SCSI devices are properly terminated. Consult your computer manual or SCSI adapter documentation for more information."

After this, I choose to do the NTFS (Quick) format option and it goes through the format in less than a minute (???). I really think that by not being able to thoroughly format my hard disk, my system performance may be suffering.

I've tried using the F6 option right when setup starts, and then using SCSI mass storage device controllers, but none of what I have used has worked.

When I first reformatted my hard disk a few days ago using the NTFS (regular) option, it completed with no errors and went straight into installing windows. Now it's giving me trouble for some reason. I've run a thorough diagnostics test on my hard drive and there are no errors there. Also, my SCSI mass storage controller is by nVidia. I believe my motherboard chipset is nVIDIA nForce2 Ultra 400. Anyways, here are my system specs:

System Specs:
OS: Windows XP Pro sp2
BIOS: Phoenix - AwardBIOS v6.00PG
Processor: AMD Athlon™ XP 2500+, MMX, 3DNow, ~1.8GHz
Memory: 1024MB RAM
Hard Disk:
Free Space: 107.8 GB
Total Space: 114.5 GB
File System: NTFS
Model WDC WD12 00JB-00CRA1 SCSI Disk Device (western digital)
Motherboard: AOpen Model AK79D-400VN
BIOS: Phoenix - AwardBIOS v6.00PG
IDE Controller: Nvidia Corp nForce2 EIDE Controller

Anyone have any ideas? I think that me not being able to format this way may be affecting my USB capabilities (I transferred data files to my mp3 player to save to my freshly formatted drive, and now I'm having trouble accessing the mp3 player. However, what leads me to believe that this NTFS problem may be causing USB problems is because the first time I formatted, when I was able to use the regular NTFS format option, I was able to access my mp3 player afterwards once all drivers were installed.)

I realize that this is a complicated issue/problem, and I've been researching in betweet formats (fingers crossed) for the past 2 days non-stop. Any help would be much appreciated.

Hi talzok, welcome to SAF

Go to the Western Digital Support site and download their hard drive diagnostics for DOS - to be run on either bootable Floppy or CD. Make the boot disk, start the computer with it inserted and run the diagnostics.

Since your drive is a SCSI, did you check that you had it properly terminated?

How do I check to make sure it's properly terminated?

I looked up model WD1200JB on the Western Digital site and it appears that it's a 120 gig IDE drive and not SCSI. Look HERE.

You need to get Western Digital's Diagnostics and run them on this hard drive to determine what the problem is. Go HERE and under Downloads you'll see Data Lifeguard Tools (DLG) which you can select or you can select from under Most Popular Downloads, DLG Diagnostics - DOS and DLG Tools 11 - DOS. Download these boot disk maker programs and make yourself these two boot floppies. Start the computer with the diagnostics and you'll see a quick and a detailed diagnostic listed - run both. There's also a "zeroing" diagnostic there as well - don't run this yet - it will take many hours for this one to run, just post the results of the first two diagnostics.