Need Hard Drive reformatting help

Hello everyone,

I have got a external hard drive that was used for extra storage with a Dish DVR. We now want to format it for use on windows now. I been doing some research on it and everything so far I tried, didnt work.

I have tried using Western Digitals Tool to do the "Write Zeros" and didnt work, I tried the SeaTools from Seagate, and that not even pick up the drive (Which is should because I know it will work on any hard drive.)

Please let me know if you have any other things to try to get this hard drive working again.

Thanks,
Afees98

Minitool Partition Wizard:
Best Free Partition Manager for Windows | MiniTool Partition Free

Does the external drive show up as a physical drive in Minitool when it is connected?

Minitool Partition Wizard:
Best Free Partition Manager for Windows | MiniTool Partition Free

Does the external drive show up as a physical drive in Minitool when it is connected?

No, it just shows the main computer drive. Doesnt show the external.

No, it just shows the main computer drive. Doesnt show the external.

What type of connection is the external hard drive? USB? eSata? Don't forget with eSata your are going to have to have an external power supply. Also if it is a desktop size (3.5") hard drive you are going to have to have an external power supply as well.

What type of connection is the external hard drive? USB? eSata? Don't forget with eSata your are going to have to have an external power supply. Also if it is a desktop size (3.5") hard drive you are going to have to have an external power supply as well.

Yes its desktop hard drive that I put in a casing with a power supply.

Yes its desktop hard drive that I put in a casing with a power supply.

Do you happen to have the model number of the hard drive and make/model of the enclosure it is in?

Without those specifics, I would recommend temporarily connecting the hard drive directly to a motherboard with a sata cable and plugging a power supply connector into it. See if the computer recognizes it as a hard drive with a regular connection.

Also, was the hard drive in this same enclosure when it was connected to the Dish receiver?

Do you happen to have the model number of the hard drive and make/model of the enclosure it is in?

Without those specifics, I would recommend temporarily connecting the hard drive directly to a motherboard with a sata cable and plugging a power supply connector into it. See if the computer recognizes it as a hard drive with a regular connection.

Also, was the hard drive in this same enclosure when it was connected to the Dish receiver?

Yea it was in this enclosure while connected to the Dish DVR. Its a Western Digital Caviar SE. 120 GB.

Yea it was in this enclosure while connected to the Dish DVR. Its a Western Digital Caviar SE. 120 GB.

K. My only suggestion then is the same, try connecting the hard drive to a motherboard directly with a sata cable and power supply power lead.... maybe someone else has more ideas. The problem is that the hard drive itself is not physically detected. It should be, regardless of how it is formatted (or not formatted.)

K. My only suggestion then is the same, try connecting the hard drive to a motherboard directly with a sata cable and power supply power lead.... maybe someone else has more ideas. The problem is that the hard drive itself is not physically detected. It should be, regardless of how it is formatted (or not formatted.)

Yea. I have a spare desktop i will be putting that into tomorrow. I already saw that suggestion. But what they said was start a install of windows and see if it will format that way. Which is what I will try tomorrow.