HDD won't format

[CravenMorehead]

I have a small 12 Gig Maxtor hard drive I am having a small problem with....It is an older drive removed from an older system and here is the scenario: At boot, it produces a S.M.A.R.T. error saying that disk failure is imminent....I try to reformat the disk with no success....IT JUST WONT FORMAT!!! Any suggestions???? I am running Spin Rite maintenance on level 4 on it right now, but am hoping that someone at TZ might have additional suggestions.. Thanks in advance and have a great day!!:D

[Reverend]

The bottom line is throw it away.

Even if you do manage to reformat it,(which i doubt you will be able to because its already showing signs of likely damage hence the SMART diagnosis),it could fail at any moment.

Just my opinion.

[egghead]

I agree that it sounds doomed if smartdrive detects an electrical or other defect in the drive...

but try this

HARD DISK REGENERATOR

Ability to detect physical bad sectors on a hard disk drive surface
Ability to recover physical bad sectors (magnetic errors) on a hard disk surface
Ability to create bootable regenerating diskette to start the regenerating process under DOS (the option is supported by Windows 95/98/ME/NT4/2000/XP/2003). The diskette can be used if you cannot start the regenerating process directly under Windows or if you cannot boot your computer to Windows (no operating system is installed on your computer or the operating system is damaged)
Ability to start the regenerating process directly under Windows (the option is supported by Windows 95/98/ME)
Hard disk drive is an integral part of every computer. It stores all your information. One of the most prevalent defects of hard drives are bad sectors on the disk surface. Bad sectors are a part of the disk surface which contains not readable, but frequently necessary information. If your hard drive is damaged by bad sectors, it is not only becomes unfit for use, but also you risk losing information stored on it.
If you suspect that your hard disk drive is damaged and contains bad sectors, you have difficulties to copy data from your disk, your operating system is unstable or you unable to boot to Windows altogether - don’t rush to throw out your disk and don’t think that your important information is irretrievably lost. Take advantage of HDD Regenerator - the unique program for regeneration of hard disk drives. HDD Regenerator will regenerate your hard drive by magnetic reversal. As a result, not readable damaged information will be restored. With all this going on, the existing information will not be lost!
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good luck