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Can't format Hitachi Touro Mobile 1TB External Hard Drive

Anonymous
2014-02-11T01:05:50+00:00

Operating System: Windows 8.1

Update Status: All Updates Installed (as of 2/10/2014)

Laptop Model #: ASUS N56VJ-DH71

Hard Drive Model #: Hitachi Touro 0s03454

Problem: A few weeks ago I bought a 1TB USB 3.0 external HDD to backup my files. When I quick format the drive, it seems to function properly, allowing me to copy files to and from the drive. When I perform a full format, however, the drive refuses to format. If I plug the HDD into the left hand USB ports, it takes a few seconds for an error pops up saying, "The system could not find the file specified." It is extremely important that I be able to perform a full format of this drive.

Troubleshooting: If I try it on the right hand USB ports, it takes a few minutes, rather than a few seconds, and then displays the same error. It's acting as if the HDD is losing power, but I've tried the registry hack (setting DeviceHackFlags to 400 in the correct usbstor registry key) and I've downloaded the windows update that was supposed to make Windows 8.1 play nice with USB 3.0 devices. I've also tried turning off USB selective suspend from the advanced power options window. I've tried deleting the device from device manager and re-installing its drivers. I even tried using HP's low level formatting tool. None of these solutions work.

Windows for home | Previous Windows versions | Devices and drivers

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  1. Anonymous
    2014-02-11T01:23:28+00:00

    Hi,

    I'm not familiar with this particular drive, but I do know that several years ago I found out that Hitachi doesn't use the normal starting sector location on their Hard Drives... at least they didn't then.

    This may be causing Windows a problem with a full format... There actually may be something in the enclosure that is intentionally blocking it also.

    I also know that not too long ago, some Hitachi and Toshiba external drives wouldn't work on Win 8 at all....

    I can only suggest that if you are desperate to do a full format that you try another 3rd party tool on a bootable CD... Something like Ubuntu Live, Parted Magic, Easeus... which are free.

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  2. Anonymous
    2014-02-11T17:58:20+00:00

    I tried it on the right-hand USB hub. Same results except it took 15 minutes to freeze instead of 2 seconds. I may borrow another computer and test the drive. Perhaps my laptop's USB 3.0 controller is defective. If I can borrow an HDD of a different brand, I may test that on my laptop as well.

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  3. Anonymous
    2014-02-11T15:08:08+00:00

    Hi,

    It's also possible that there is a problem with the USB 3.0 circuitry in the enclosure, or maybe the HDD is overheating...

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  4. Anonymous
    2014-02-11T03:49:46+00:00

    Note: In Windows I could only get speeds of 20MiB/s to 60MiB/s if I was lucky, but on Ubuntu I could get 300MiB/s to 500MiB/s . This tells me that Windows 8.1's USB 3.0 updated drivers aren't really working.

    I used Gparted to create a new partition table, and split the drive into three partitions (2GB, 16GB, +900GB). A couple times that failed, but I eventually got it to work. Then, I opened TrueCrypt to encrypt the +900GB partition. Initially the write speed was very fast (500MiB/s), but that quickly slowed down to 300MiB/s then to 160 MiB/s then the blue hard drive light sputtered and TrueCrypt froze at 114 MiB/s. I think the hard drive had disconnected because all my programs became non-responsive and the drives partitions suddenly dismounted. I hard reset the computer and tried the same process again. Same results.

    I'm starting to wonder if the hard drive is defective. When I try to write large amounts of data to the drive (formatting it, or formatting and encrypting), it disconnects. I'm going to try the process a third time on a different, historically more reliable, USB hub. The hard drive might just be drawing too much power.

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  5. Anonymous
    2014-02-11T02:02:33+00:00

    I'll try Gparted on a live Ubuntu CD. Thanks for the suggestions. I'll let you know how it goes.

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