Windows 10: How long time to format 3Tbyte HDD (not quick format)? Dead HDD?

Is my HDD dead? Or can someone tell me how long time it will take to format a 3Tbyte HDD with one big partition?

Right now it is trying to format via an elevated prompt and DISKPART. After about 9 minutes it says it is 1% finished .. ie it will take about 900 minutes to format this drive !! Is this really normal?

I have never had any troubble with it before, but the SMART numbers indicates that I must replace it soon, so I would put som movies on it, and then leave it. I guess it can't be more broken from just sitting still without power or connection ... (Is this true?)

:)

 

Windows 10 will not "Quick Format" a 3TB HDD

Hi David,



Thank you for writing to Microsoft Community Forums.



The time for Quick Format always depends on the size of the hard drive. As you mentioned that the size of the hard drive is 3 TB. So it will take certain amount of depending on the computer’s configuration as well.

However, it is possible that your 3TB HDD is MBR (master boot record) disk. You can check it in Disk Management, which only supports 2TB drive. That would be the reason the Windows 10 was unable to perform Quick Format on 3 TB HDD.
You can try to
convert an MBR disk into a GPT disk and check if Quick format is working.



We can suggest you to update the storage drivers of the computer from the manufacturer’s website which will increase the support capacity above 2TB.



Hope it helps.



Rohit Raina

Microsoft Community - Moderator

 

Windows 10 will not "Quick Format" a 3TB HDD

I moved a 3TB HDD from a Windows 7 Pro computer to my new Windows 10 Pro computer. Rather than delete all the data, I thought it would be quicker to just do a Quick Format. I was wrong. Disk Management just sat there doing nothing for over 45 minutes.
I deleted all partitions in the drive and created one large partition and tried again. Same results.

I removed the HDD from the new computer and installed it in the old (Windows 7) computer. I did a Quick Format in a few seconds. I put the newly formatted HDD in the new computer and I'm in business.

What is the difference?

 

500gb hdd taking forever to format - normal?

You should format properly the first time you buy a hdd and then just use quick format after that. And yes a big hdd (500/750) can take hours (literally)