Hello,

I am just new in the forum. I would like to ask some help, opinions, and advices about my hardware problem with my SATA II HD (WD5000AVVS). I was using Windows Vista Ultimate when Microsoft detected I was using a pirated copy. I ignored the warnings, and eventually, my OS crashed. But the OS is not my major problem now. I still wanted to install Vista Ultimate inspite of what Microsoft did to my OS, but the problem now is that I cannot reformat the first partition of my hard drive which is the C: during the installation process. It keeps giving me error message that Windows cannot format the said partition. Luckily, I still have another SATA HD (WD800BD), I temporarily used it to install Vista and do some diagnostics on my primary hard drive. But even inside Windows, WD5000AVVS cannot still be formatted by windows itself. I looked in the website of the manufacturer, there is no available diagnostic tool for writing zeros or low level formatting for that model. I tried their diagnostic tool which only offers formatting and partitioning the hard drive. I partitioned it successfully but it still an error formatting. I did this inside Windows. I can't use their diagnostic in DOS because my DVD drive is not supported by that software. So my only chance here is doing diagnostic tools inside Windows. Now my question is, which of the 2 programs I should use from HDDGuru, the HDD Low Level Formatting or the HDD Wipe? I would really appreciate further tips, advices, suggestions, and help for my problem. I haven't slept for 2 days now because I noticed some funny behaviors with the other parts of my PC, not only my hard drive but also my mobo and RAMs are acting weird. These things happened after I just updated something in Windows that detected I was using an Activation Exploit software. Now I am using Windows XP SP3. These are the specs of my PC:

CPU - Intel Core 2 Quad Q6600 2.4 Ghz
MB - Intel DP35PD Media Series P35 Chipset
RAM - 2 x 2GB PC-6400 DDR2 800 SimpleTech
HD - 1 x Western Digital WD5000AVVS 500GB SATA II / 1 x Western Digital WD800BD 80GB SATA
Graphics - XFX GeForce 8800GT Alpha Dog Standard Edition 512MB DDR3
Sound - Creative SoundBlaster X-Fi XtremeGamer Fatality Professional Series

Big thanks.

Essentially any Low Level format tool should work for this purpose. I still like to use MHDD, you can download it from the files section as well.

Good luck!

I already tried wiping and low level formatting the hard disk and still no luck. So the best guess is that the hard drive is defective. Do you agree?

Was the hard disk dynamic or basic ?