320GB Sata Hard Disk: Can format FAT32 and NTFS but NOT any linux flavours

[menotu]

Got a strange one in that I can't format my linux partition (54Gb in size) to any linux flavour - I've tried Ext2 and Ext3 and Ext4 and none of them work - I booted up a GParted CD and tried formatting it that way but it doesn't take - I just keep getting an error message saying "format failed - cannot complete task".

When I run the partition software it looks as though the formatting is happening - eg, the progress bar moves along as though all is A-O-K but then when the bar gets close to the end I get the above error message.

I tried formatting it with FAT32 and NTFS and that works fine so I'm stumped as to what could be causing it not allowing linux extensions..

The other 3 partitions on the disk are just fine.

I also tried using Paragons Partition Manager v10 and that didn't want to play ball either

And to cap it all the HD went out of warranty only 12 days ago - sod's law I suppose 

[T6]

the partitions must be failing

do a backup and wipe completely the hard disk, i am not sure if dban can work with a external hard disk

http://www.dban.org/download

after that you can create again partitions but if the problem persists, it could be that the hard disk has some bad sectors at the beginning, a big problem

[thorper]

I find the SystemRescueCD very useful for formatting http://www.sysresccd.org/

[menotu]

T6:   I'm guessing DBan does the whole disk?  I'll probably go that route when all else has been tried

thorper  SystemRescueCD was another one I had tried (I have a few "rescue/recovery" boot CDs that I keep for times like this)  looks like I may need to add to my armoury!!

Thanks

[Was_Just19]

Delete the partition and recreate it very slightly smaller in size, then format it.

Of course it may depend on how you have the disk partitioned ...... are you trying to exceed the number of partitions or mix up types of partitions?

More info would be required about the partitioning  .....

[menotu]

Delete the partition and recreate it very slightly smaller in size, then format it.

Of course it may depend on how you have the disk partitioned ...... are you trying to exceed the number of partitions or mix up types of partitions?

More info would be required about the partitioning  .....

JohnBoy:  I had 4 partitions as:

1 x NTFS Win7 install;
1 x NTFS WinXp install;
1 x NTFS DATA DISK
1 x EXT3 PCLinuxOS 2009.2 KDE 3.5x install

I wanted to give KDE4 a proper tryout (e.g. NOT in a VirtualBox environment) and wanted to remove any lingering detritus so I thought why not simply reformat the Linux partition and have a fresh install of PCLinuxOS and update to KDE4 that way but alas, that's when the problem occured.

As mentioned earlier I tried formatting with EXT2 and EXT3 and EXT4 but no joy but FAT32 and NTFS worked fine! Thats what's so odd, normally (in my experience anyway) when this happens the disk just won't format regardless of what type of formatting is chosen so to accept FAT/NTFS but not any linux flavour is just plain weird...

I then deleted/removed the "old" Ext3 partition and also deleted/removed the WinXP Partition and tried partitioning that larger partition to EXT3 but again no luck!

I will give your option a whirl and make the partition smaller (what size would you recommend? Is 12GB too small? too big?)

The Disk itself is an Internal SATA Western Digital Caviar SE16 320GB S300 16MB

[Was_Just19]

1 x NTFS Win7 install;
1 x NTFS WinXp install;
1 x NTFS DATA DISK
1 x EXT3 PCLinuxOS 2009.2 KDE 3.5x install

Is that the order of the partitions on the disk? Are they all Primary partitions or is there an extended partition in there?

Maybe the best thing would be to run PCLOS and in a terminal type

fdisk -l    (minus elle not digit one)

and copy and paste the command and the result in a post.
That should give us an idea how the disk is divided and if there may be problems with any part of the partitioning.

regards.