WD30efrx can't be formatted, No longer recognized

Just bought a brand new WD30EFRX OEM version. I have a Window XP pro (32-bit)

After installation, the BIOS see the disk and with 801G capacity. The Disk Management found the Disk, but only saw 746G. Formatted it as primary partition. Downloaded the Acronis True Image. Used it to repartition the drive into 1 T primary and 1T logical. But the formatting failed. Reboot the computer, tried to use the window xp CD to partition the disk and the new drive is invisible. Rebooted again, now the new disk is still recognized by the BIOS, but invisible to Disk Management or Acronis True Image. Acronis True Image can’t wipe the drive clean either.

Is there a fix? Or I have to send it in for replacement?  

If the drive can be accessed by the bios, you can repartition it. Try downloading a boot ‘cd’ like gparted live usb, boot to it, and then use the graphical tools to repartition your drive and write the changes to disk.

Also see this:

http://community.wdc.com/t5/Desktop-Portable-Drives/736gb-of-3tb-visable-Only-Solution-for-32-bit-systems/td-p/567543

-W

I tried this and it is sort of working but too slowly:

  • Reboot the computer.
  • Use Microsoft Diskpart through command prompt.
  • Create a primary partition of 2T on this new disk (my second disk, no booting).
  • Switch to Disk Management to format the disk in full NTFS.
  • It took 6 hours to get the 1% format done (when I tried Acronis True Image, it report sector 2463 bad)
  • It took a total 33 hours now to 14% format.
  • Is this disk a problematic one that I need to return? Usually it takes under 15 hours to format a 2T disk.
  • Acronis True Image supposely can extend into that 746G still left from my 3T disk once I finish this stupid format thingy.   

After about 40 hours, the formatting process finally cracked and quitted with error.

What is the process to exchange for a drive?

Go to this link. Select End User, and follow the instructions for Product Replacement (RMA).

http://support.wdc.com/warranty/index.asp?wdc_lang=en

Please click kudos star if this is helpful. Thanks!

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