Problem formatting and adding files to My Book Premium

I’ve posted elsewhere on the web, but haven’t received anymore help…so I thought I would post here.  Sorry, it’s a bit text heavy.

I received a hand-me-down WD My Book Premium Edition (WD4000D032).  My dad tried to reformat it before handing it to me, but he said he was unsuccessful.  I have Windows Vista, whereas he has Windows 7.  I decided to try formatting the drive myself, but came to the same problem.  (I tried formatting with Visa; a window opened when I connected the drive and asked me to format.)  I searched online and found a solution to look at the drive under Disk Management.  The suggestion was to delete the volume.  The disk said, “Healthy (Primary Partition)” and “File System: RAW.”  I tried to delete the volume, but it said, “The system cannot find the file specified.”  Under Computer, I couldn’t access the disk either.  Strangely enough when I selected “Explore” (to explore the disk), in Disk Management, it opened a window and showed nothing is on the disk. [Also, I was now able to open the disk under Computer.]  I decided to try and copy a file over, but it didn’t work.  :frowning:

I learned, the other day from my dad, that there had been encrypted files on the drive.  He didn’t remember the password so he didn’t delete the files before trying to reformat the drive himself.  :confounded:  So, I decided to check WD’s support page to see if there were any troubleshooting ideas I might try.

I downloaded Data LifeGuard Diagnostics for Windows.  I tried to run Quick Test; it failed.  I ran Extended Test next, and it failed too.  It said, “Too many bad sectors detected.”  Then, I ran Write Zeros (Full Erase).  It said, “Sector #0-256:: Write Zeros error! Continue?”  I chose Yes.  “Sector # 256-512:: Write Zeros error! Continue?”  Yes…and I continued to do the same for #512-768, #768-1024, #1024-1280#3072-3328 and I stopped clicking Yes.  I didn’t know how long that would continue for, so I became tired of clicking Yes.  I think it was going to ask until 781 million and something.

AFTER THAT, I tried a suggestion from a user (on a different forum.)  He suggested I try the WD Quick Formatter.  I downloaded it and tried it.  Didn’t work.  “The application has encountered an unexpected error and is now exiting.”  :angry:   THEN, the drive disappeared from my Computer.  I reconnected it and it said the drive was unrecognizable.  I disconnected it again, turned the drive off, turned it back on, and reconnected.  It could read it again!  So, vista asked me to format yet again.  I did a Quick Format, and it didn’t work.  Next, I decided to try to do a regular format.  It was working!!!

16+ hours later, a window pops up and says, “Windows was unable to complete the format.”  And another window:

Windows can’t format F:\  Check to see that the disk and drive are connected properly, make sure that the disk is not read-only, and then try again. For more information, search Help for read-only files and how to change them.

The only thing I can think of to do is to try Write Zero again and click Yes until it finishes.  I’m at my wits end.  The drive is becoming more of a pain than a gift.

Please help!

Well if you used Data LifeGuard Diagnostics and it failed the Quick and Extended Test there is not a lot more you can do, the HDD is faulty.

Try low level format with Data Lifeguard. The drive needs to be replaced but try that and see how it goes.