Hi friends, I've been having problems with my drive (a 300gb Seagate), sluggish performance, locking up when playing audio or video files, things like that. I figured I'd just wipe the drive and start off clean. I backed up all my data but I can't get the drive to format. First I tried to use slayer's disk, it says it formatted everything successfully but it's wrong all my stuff is still there. I've tried formatting each partition from the Xenium OS (my chip is an SPice) but I'll I get is a formatting failed error. Right now my drive is in my computer, I've been trying to wipe it using windows disk manager but I get an error then too. My drive is Unlocked just to clarify. Does anyone know how I might be able to wipe this drive and start a-new? Thanks.

Sounds to me like your drive is on the way out. I say that because this is the most common cause of sluggish performance.

If that is the case, you want to make sure you have backed up your EEprom before the drive dies, just in case.

Really? This drive is less than a year old, is it common for drives to die that quickly?

Depends:Where do you have it??Has it been droped or thrown???do you take care of it??Does it have proper cooling??

It's been in my xbox since I got it.


No No No, people who throw their drives and then post wondering why it doesn't work should be smacked.


Now this I'm not sure of, its a 7200rpm drive and like I said its been in my xbox since I got it, I haven't added any extra cooling to the box. I assumed it would be fine, was I wrong?

Are there any diagnostics I can run while my drive is in my computer to see if it's dying?

You can D/L the diagnostic software from Seagate.

I would try that. Even if it doesn't find any errors most of those diagnostic packages are able to do low level formats.

try formating it with xbpartitioner
if that doesn't work, try xboxhdm

Guys, stop working this guy up...please..!!!

The Seagate 300 GB is a big pain in the ass with Xenium OSes. Beleive me, I have one. The problem is that for some reason xenium can not recognize this particular drive with the most recent OS. Downgrade your OS to v2.0.1 rather than 2.3.1. That way, you can use the disk tools you need to in xenium. However, i had a hard time getting the Bios to recognize the partition. If you use a v1.6 bios get the EvoX bios M8+ for version 1.6 AND partition and format your HDD with XBPartitioner. Send me a PM if you need more help, this drive was a BIG problem for me, but i got it to work....although now I have another problem, but i think it is unrelated

Also, what are you using to play ur audio and video files? If its XBMC, the problem could be caused by an improper install of XBMC to the new drive. You cannot simply just move it from one hard drive to another, you MUST reinstall it manually. If not, you dont need to uninstall and then reinstall...just delete the databases folder's contents and that should do the trick. If you need more specific instructions, let me know

Cheers!

You need to run something called SMART diagnostics, which you can find on the manufs website

dude if the drive was working fine, i doubt that there is a problem with it, if you want to run those diags thats cool but I had a hell of a time with that drive and its just because xenium has a hard time with it, but once it gets installed its money..

try what I am suggesting if you want to save time...its faster and if it doest work, then you can try all these different diag programs.

At the moment I'm tied up moving all my shit out of my room sorting through it for the first time since I moved. (Dear God, the things I have found.) So I'll try your tips tomorrow and get back to you. Thanks for the help and it's good to know that my drive probably isn't dying, I was worried there for a sec.