WD10EALS 1TB HDD "The Format did not complete successfully"

I just purchased a WD10EALS 1TB SATA II HDD to be used as a storage drive in my system. I had intended to break it into two partitons. One being 500GB and the other consisting of the remaining space.

The HDD is properly recognized in the BIOS. Windows 7 64 properly indentifies the drive. I can get as far as sucessfully creating the partitions. It is when I go to format that I seem to run into a problem. I seem to be unable to get the drive to format. (NTFS - default)

I tried it in my intended (500GB / remaining space) configuration. I tried smaller 300GB partitions. I tried with just one full partition. I swapped out cables just to eliminate that as a possibility.

I then downloaded Data Lifeguard and started the quick test, and the test failed with a “Status Code = 7”. Well, I had other work that needed to be done so I just pulled the drive and was going to RMA it back to Newegg. 

However, in my haste and neglecting to make full note of the Lifeguard error. I have decided to give it one more try before I send it back. Before I pop it back in my system, I figured I would ask here if anyone else has had this problem or had any ideas I can give a try.

I have been using WD HDD’s since the DOS days and this is honestly the first one I have ever had any issues with as a new product. Since I normally do not buy HDD’s over 640GB, this being the first 1TB drive I have purchased for myself, I figured there may be something I simply am not aware of.

The basic system hardware is as follows.

ASUS M4A77TD Pro AM3 Motherboard (BIOS fully up to date)

AMD Phenom II X6 1090T

1 ASUS Optical DVD Multi Lightscribe Drive. (SATA)

1 120GB IDE WD Drive

3 WD Caviar Black 640GB (SATA)

8GB A-Data 1600G Gaming Series DDR3

Cougar PowerX 700 Watt PSU

Windows 7 Ultimate 64 (Fully up to date)

Any and all input is welcome and appreciated. Sorry for any typos, very long day.

WD says if DLG fails even on quick test, the drive need to be replaced.

Thanks for the response.

Yes, I have decided to just RMA the drive. I did attempt to format the drive in 3 other systems and in all 3 cases the format fails. One system was XP Pro 32 and the other 2 were 7 Ultimate 32.

I was able to format the drive using an XP install disk, something that others were able to get to work. However the drive errors out no matter how you try and use it. So it is indeed defefctive.

Still, first bad HDD from Western DIgital in well over 15 years, guess I was just my turn. :smiley: