ok, so ..
.. in case any "hardware-pro" is capable of helping with this ..
Im not sure .. but .. I think ..
I killed usb HDD by low-level format

currently HDD drive is unusable

I wanted to "wipe" WD 2500BEV External hdd (Model: WDC WD2500BEVS-22UST0)
I used windows utility http://www.softpedia.com/get/System/Har ... Tool.shtml
utility showed errors, so I killed the process ...
.. HDD became unusable after that .. (at least what I think happened)

Windows "computer management" "disk management" show dialog "initialize disk" ..
"The request could not be performed because of an I/O device error."

ubuntu gparted reads the disk but is unable to allocate filetable

ubuntu "disk utility" SMART data - "disk is healthy"
I ran "disk utility" "extended self-tests" which showes the "disk is healthy"

root@dell:/home/martin# badblocks -v /dev/sdc
..gives an endless row of numbers ..


..so .. Im guessing I need to low-level format the drive again ... ??

Martin,

Why were you doing this in the first place? What was the original situation?


What version of Windows did you use (XP? Vista? Win7?).

I don't know who exactly on this forum wrote/supports that utility - I did PM the board owner after other threads related to that utility (though NOT causing your symptoms). No reply yet.


What error(s) are shown in the dmesg output when you say that gparted is reporting some kind of problem?

Have you tried to just erase a block on that disk using dd, to see if any error is logged on that simple test?


Unfortunately that information is not detailed enough - have you installed smartmontools? If you do that, then run:(where sdZ is the correct device name for this disk drive) and attach smartctl-output.txt to your reply, and we can see what that shows.


I doubt that things are that simple. If you answer the above questions and supply the smartctl output that I request, then we can see if that information gives any clues.

Thanks for reply
.. looks like the drive goes in the bin. cheap 40euro drive anyway



root@dell:/home/martin# dmesg | grep usb
[ 0.318308] usbcore: registered new interface driver usbfs
[ 0.318364] usbcore: registered new interface driver hub
[ 0.318474] usbcore: registered new device driver usb
[ 1.468124] usb 1-2: new high speed USB device using ehci_hcd and address 3
[ 1.760080] usb 1-3: new high speed USB device using ehci_hcd and address 4
[ 4.296120] usb 2-1: new low speed USB device using uhci_hcd and address 2

[ 13.684478] scsi2 : usb-storage 1-3:1.0
[ 13.708135] usbcore: registered new interface driver usb-storage

[ 322.948162] usb 1-8: new high speed USB device using ehci_hcd and address 5
[ 323.083724] scsi3 : usb-storage 1-8:1.0



dd if=/dev/zero of=/dev/sdc
dd: writing to `/dev/sdc': Input/output error
1+0 records in
0+0 records out
0 bytes (0 B) copied, 0.00968133 s, 0.0 kB/s

Unfortunately, your decision to use that grep has removed all the potentially useful messages. Of course the whole dmesg output isn't needed (I guess that's perhaps why you decided to use grep?) - that's why I asked for the messages from dmesg specifically when gparted was reporting whatever errors you saw on the screen.


So there's certainly a problem - but you've not given answers to enough of the carefully chosen questions which I asked previously, for me to give any comment about what problem your drive has.


OK, so from your comment, it seems that the cause of the problem isn't important for you to investigate further, and you're going to replace the drive anyway. Therefore one last suggestion is that you could download a bootable CD image of WD LifeGuard from the WD website. Running the test option from that CD may give you confirmation of a fault (though not necessarily what the exact fault is - that is what I was hoping to gain from the answers to my earlier questions), which would substantiate a warranty claim - if the drive is still under warranty.

Good luck with whatever you decide.