Failing at installing new hard drive

[CaptainMooseInc]

So my boss owns an HP A6650F desktop computer. It comes factory with a Seagate 500GB SATA drive. Recently, he installed security cameras that feed back to the computer. I suggested, like an idiot, that he add a second hard drive just for the security cameras to record on as to not make the primary drive having to constantly read and write data and eventually murder the drive.

Well, now I'm STUCK. Apparently his computer is setup to already run in f@^#ing RAID mode. I've never messed around with RAID, and I can't seem to get this stupid new hard drive to format for the life of me.

The first one, I thought, was a bad drive out of the box, but now I'm sure that I'm just the one being stupid.

Windows Vista x64 Ultimate recognizes the drive, and also recognizes that it's RAW and needs to be formatted. Every time I try and format the drive (a 1.5TB 3.0 SATA Seagate drive), windows said that it cannot format the drive and to check that it's not read only or whatever. I thought that maybe, MAYBE the problem was that I was running the second drive off of the SATA2 connector on the MB and that it was trying

to run the two drives in parallel, so I tried it in the SATA3 slot and still had the same problem.

I even tried tricking the drive by unplugging the primary (C drive and plugging the new drive in as a primary. Then I ran the Vista install CD again and chose the "Repair Computer" option. Then I opened a DOS prompt and told the drive to format. Once again, it failed. It said something like "First Sector is Bad" then "Sector sector is bad".

There's no way that I picked up TWO bad hard drives from Fry's, and from Seagate none-the-less, is there?!?

For anyone familiar with these setups or anyone who has a solution, please post. I will post more info if you need it. This is definitely getting to this point:

Thanks in advance,
-Moose

[Shish]

You may need to remove it from the raid array in bios or via the winblows interface as it may be auto adding the sata ports. If the drive has been preformatted for a raid or attempted to have been formatted, especially via a raid prog or bios, it may then read as a bad drive when you try to get winblows to format it. Many other potential answers but that's one I have come across with HPs and other similar systems designed for office(idiot) use (bosses).

[CaptainMooseInc]

How do I remove it from the raid array in Windoze? The BIOS is primitive and has very few options. There is no way to turn off RAID in the BIOS. The only thing close i can find is it says run the drives as SATA1+2 or just SATA1. When I turned it to the SATA1 option, it didn't find the 2nd drive at startup...

Sorry I'm so dense on this...

[IronBits]

http://h10025.www1.hp.com/ewfrf/wc/d...name=c00906129

Four SATA connectors:

• SATA1 = Black
• SATA2 = White
• SATA3 = Blue
• SATA4 = Yellow

Run as just SATA1

Also, try hooking it up with a SATA to USB adapter and see if that works.
Or better yet, find a Firewire 800 card and hook it up to that as exteranl.

[LAURENU2]

CaptainMooseInc
Let me ask you DID you Fdisk the disks or run the drives setup disk to partition it ???

[CaptainMooseInc]

I ran the Seagate Disc Wizard first, then I tried going through Disk Management to get it working.

IB, I will try your suggestion after work tonight. Lauren, I'll check back after work to see what you said.

[LAURENU2]

There's no way that I picked up TWO bad hard drives from Fry's, and from Seagate none-the-less, is there?!?

Ya you
I know vary little about Raids Just thought it did not see a partition
Have you tired formating in Fat32?
Or running chckdisk/scandisk to fix it
and one last thing I can think of is
Does your BIOS support that size drive

[CaptainMooseInc]

It's a newer HP run quad core AMD Phenom. The BIOS also displays the drive, so I'd expect it to be okay with it.

Had to put off going to the office until tomorrow night. I have to be up at 9am to drive an hour and a half to look at a house I might wish to buy. Indoor and in-ground pool. Can't resist.

Status update around 1am tomorrow.

[CaptainMooseInc]

I absolutely could NOT get that hard drive to work on that computer. Nothing I did worked. It just kept saying (in DOS prompt) that "First boot sector is not writable" then, "Second boot sector is not writable".

Solution? I ripped that HDD out and put it in another system in the office that was 1 model newer than the computer I was trying to install to. The BIOS was MUCH better and I had the drive installed as a logical drive within just 5 minutes. I pulled it back out and put it into the other system. Everything works fine now.

I have no idea why the other system wouldn't format it. Now I really don't care because it's working and that's all that matters!

Thanks guys!
-Moose

[IronBits]

Sounds like a BIOS problem, but your resolution is one I have used in the past with the same results.
Glad to hear you finally got-er-done.

[Shish]

I normally recomend not using any of the proprietary disk progs to create an overlay but do use it to reset the disk's setup or even use fdisk. Sometimes the setup stuff gets full (sorry, just got up, can't remember the proper terms) with previous setups and needs clearing out which is what certain dos progs and proprietary disk progs are good for and just clear it all out to allow the disk to start from scratch. Fdisk is still handy for this type of problem or just download any of the proprietary ones from the disk manufacturer. Substitution of parts is a basic tool in any hardware armory.