Hi, I've got a problem with two Philips mp3 players I bought - hdd120(20gb) and hdd070(2gb) both are harddisk's.
Neither work and I'd like to get them at least usable as ext. hdd for storage etc.
The hdd070 is recognized by XP but asks to be formated, I've tried formatting fat, fat32 but just after 100% it says 'was unable to format drive'. The hdd120 is not found by XP at all. Both drives have lcd screens that light up and show the 'pc connection' graphic, they make some hdd noises? when they should do.

Question is - are the drives completely dead?
- if not can I repair bad sector and reformat somehow?
- I've tried to find some free software for this but nothing yet.
- Do I need to try via DOS if so anyone got any advice on where to find some clear instuctions as
I'm not clued up, but I can follow some common sense stuff.

Cheers

Check out this page and see if you need to download and install the Digital Media Manager and perhaps upgrade (flash) the firmware to get it working.

Cheers Jim, I have looked at the Philips site and the latest software is installed, I'll have another look thou. The firmware is updated via this software but its not correctly detecting the players and the hdd120 not at all.

Usually any ext. memory device is detected straight away via XP, even my mobile(cell)phone using the usb cable. So what I wondered is how do you know if the hdd is damaged beyond repair, I've not had much to do with changing/partitioning harddrives so not had experiance.

I'm not at all familiar with the devices you have. Perhaps you'll find online help or a forum on their site that you can pose the question to. If the cable has a connector on both ends, try another, since the wires may have broken from too much use.

Cheers for reply, i've searched endlessly for forum info to no avail, the cables are basic usb a>b so no problem. To me it seems like both harddrives are too damaged and I'll stop wasting time on them. Got them for practicly nothing due to the faults.
Just wanted to see if anyone knew much about reformating/repairing a HDD to be certain it was physical damage.
thanks anyway.