I have a Western Digital Passport external USB HDD 120GB. I have had it formatted in several different ways because i was running linux off it at one point. Now I have a problem, I keep receiving errors stating that the "sector specified" cannot be found when i try to write to it. have done sector scans which turn out fine, I have done error checking etc, reformatted the drive several times but to no avail. I think maye the first bunch of sectors may have a problem or are still linux formatted somehow or something, Is there a way i can do a complete format and repair of the entire harddrive regardless of what partitions were on it. If i try to format it in windows I get errors saying format could not complete If i use western digital diagnostics to write zeros to every sector it fails and can't write to any of the first million sectors(i gave up after a million so don't know where it might start working).

Any suggestions would be much appreciated. Thanks

AMD X2 4600+ AM2 ACFrzr64
M2N32-Sli Dlx
2x 1GB Corsair XMS2 DDR2 800
NvGeforce7600GT
Enrmx. Lib. 500W
2x 250GB SATA2 7200 RAID 0
1x 200GB SATA2 7200
Logitech G7 Carbon SE

Try this utility to wipe the drive.
http://killdisk.com/

Will that ignore anything already on the disk? I am trying the western digital tool again and it still gives errors writing to the first X sectors and hte last X sectors, everything in between is fine though, no idea why.

AMD X2 4600+ AM2 ACFrzr64
M2N32-Sli Dlx
2x 1GB Corsair XMS2 DDR2 800
NvGeforce7600GT
Enrmx. Lib. 500W
2x 250GB SATA2 7200 RAID 0
1x 200GB SATA2 7200
Logitech G7 Carbon SE

I don't understand what you are asking. Ifd you want to retain data on the disk DO NOT use killdisk. I am not sure of this, but I believe Linux and Windows format in such a way that there can be overlaps in the partitions. I'm guessing the only way to fix that would be to wipe the drive and start over. Killdisk will restore the drive to new condition, no partitions, no formatting, no files.

I don't want to retain any data, the drive is empty, but i belief some past partition is causing problem. By repeated formatting with arious utils i managed to gain access to the clusters at hte start of the disk which were inacessible but now there s a cluster at the end of the disk (the last 6%) which isn't accessible. The Western Digital tool gives "error writing zero's" and killdisk just stops. I left it on oernight and it didn't budge past 94%, the disk snt even being accessed now. I need some way to get back the last load of sectors on the disk.

Thanks again.

AMD X2 4600+ AM2 ACFrzr64
M2N32-Sli Dlx
2x 1GB Corsair XMS2 DDR2 800
NvGeforce7600GT
Enrmx. Lib. 500W
2x 250GB SATA2 7200 RAID 0
1x 200GB SATA2 7200
Logitech G7 Carbon SE

"If i try to format it in windows I get errors saying format could not complete If i use western digital diagnostics to write zeros to every sector it fails..."
"I am trying the western digital tool again and it still gives errors writing to the first X sectors and hte last X sectors..."

Your hard drive is failing and beyond repair.
All hard drives have a small amount of their capacity reserved to accomodate bad sectors, and as new bad sectors are discovered by the hard drive routines, sectors found to be bad are logically replaced with good sectors from the reserved part, but obviously your drive has far more bad sectors than that reserved part can hold. The zero fill utility can be used as a last resort to get the hard drive to not use some bad sectors, but it can cope with only so many of them - if the zero fill utility can't repair it, it's beyond repair.

Strange that, the drive was brand new. Anyway, I contacted Amazon from whom I bought the drive and they dispatched me a new one same day. I have received the new one (which is V2) exactly the same to look at except the USB cable with it is cheap and lacking quality .... oh, and it's only 15cm long :S..... Strange

AMD X2 4600+ AM2 ACFrzr64
M2N32-Sli Dlx
2x 1GB Corsair XMS2 DDR2 800
NvGeforce7600GT
Enrmx. Lib. 500W
2x 250GB SATA2 7200 RAID 0
1x 200GB SATA2 7200
Logitech G7 Carbon SE

Thanks for updating your progress. I assume the replacement hard drive works fine and your problem has been fixed.

Yeh, new one works great, i noted the new one is labelled as the V2 ... only problem is the sucky wire, other than that, drive seems fine.

AMD X2 4600+ AM2 ACFrzr64
M2N32-Sli Dlx
2x 1GB Corsair XMS2 DDR2 800
NvGeforce7600GT
Enrmx. Lib. 500W
2x 250GB SATA2 7200 RAID 0
1x 200GB SATA2 7200
Logitech G7 Carbon SE

There is probably a reason for the short length of the cable. I doubt it was done to save money.