Hard drive wont Format

[alavahalf]

Just about to give a computer away...all I want to do is format the drive.
I have taken the hard drive from the system and changed the jumper to slave.
Then put it in my desktop as though it were a spare drive.
Gone to my computer...right clickedon the spare drive, and then... format.
Then quick format.
It seems to be formatting it ...then after 5 minutes it says...disk cannot be accesed.
What am I doing wrong.

[ChuckFickens]

is the first hard drive set to master? (not cable select)

[alavahalf]

You know what I had to do to answer that.....yes remove both drives.
The main drive was on cable select...I have now set it to Master..and the spare drive set to slave... and tried it again.
But I am still told...can't format this drive.

[ChuckFickens]

what size is the slave drive? are you sure the motherboard can support drives large enough? also is it using a 80 core or 40 core IDE cable?

You could also try setting the second drive to master and connecting it in place of the CD drive on the second IDE channel (if that's possible)

[alavahalf]

The slave drive is only 40 gb
The ide cable is 40 core.
The connector for the dvd drive is a different size interface to the hard drive.
If I select master on the spare drive ... the system wont boot up.
I expect the two drives set to master causes a conflict.

[ChuckFickens]

Shouldn't be a problem from what you say (setting both drives to master on the same channel does (obviously) cause a conflict)

I'd check in the BIOS to see if the drive is being listed OK in there (look for a message saying something like press F2 to enter setup straight after the computer is turned on and press the key it says)

It does sound possible that the drive may have a fault though.

[alavahalf]

Have now looked at the BIOS and the drive is recognised...
May as well tell them they need a new drive, having spent all morning messing around with it...I'm only trying to give it away.
Anyhow Chuck... thanks for your efforts.