# Can't Format Hard Drive/Parameter is incorrect. **URL:** \ **Category:** Factual Questions\ **Created:** [October 22, 2005, 4:25am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/cant-format-hard-drive-parameter-is-incorrect/327396 "2005-10-22T04:25:26Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![treis](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/bc79bd/32.png) [@treis](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/treis)\ **Post date:** [October 22, 2005, 4:25am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/cant-format-hard-drive-parameter-is-incorrect/327396/1 "2005-10-22T04:25:26Z")
I purchases a notebook HD off of eBay and am trying to set it up as an external drive. The drive powers up, spins fine and the computer recognizes it but when I go to format the drive it can’t format it and gives me a error saying “D:/ Can not be accessed. The Parameters are incorrect.” My google fu is lacking becuase I see a lot of people have had this problem but can’t find a solution. Any ideas on how to fix this? ---
**Author:** ![treis](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/bc79bd/32.png) [@treis](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/treis)\ **Post date:** [October 22, 2005, 4:27am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/cant-format-hard-drive-parameter-is-incorrect/327396/2 "2005-10-22T04:27:49Z")
Probably should have mentioned that I am running Windows XP. ---
**Author:** ![Shagnasty](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/9dc877/32.png) [@Shagnasty](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Shagnasty)\ **Post date:** [October 22, 2005, 4:29am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/cant-format-hard-drive-parameter-is-incorrect/327396/3 "2005-10-22T04:29:17Z")
You can try the utility linked below. It can get past that problem and blow away damn near anything. [http://www.download.com/Active-Kill-Disk-Hard-Drive-Eraser/3000-2092\_4-10188745.html?tag=lst-0-2](http://www.download.com/Active-Kill-Disk-Hard-Drive-Eraser/3000-2092_4-10188745.html?tag=lst-0-2) ---
**Author:** ![treis](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/bc79bd/32.png) [@treis](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/treis)\ **Post date:** [October 22, 2005, 4:55am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/cant-format-hard-drive-parameter-is-incorrect/327396/4 "2005-10-22T04:55:48Z")
I’ve now run into the problem of not knowing how to make my computer boot off of a USB drive. ---
**Author:** ![treis](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/bc79bd/32.png) [@treis](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/treis)\ **Post date:** [October 22, 2005, 5:42am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/cant-format-hard-drive-parameter-is-incorrect/327396/5 "2005-10-22T05:42:19Z")
ok I used that utility and it seems to have made it worse. Now when I go to Disk Management I get an error that says: “An unexpected error has occured. Check the Systems event log for more information on the error. Close the disk management console, then restart the disk management or restart the computer.” ---
**Author:** ![Squee](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/ba9def/32.png) [@Squee](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Squee)\ **Post date:** [October 22, 2005, 4:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/cant-format-hard-drive-parameter-is-incorrect/327396/6 "2005-10-22T16:41:23Z")
Did you try running the disk manufacturers drive utility on the drive? Then again, I’ve never done this on an external drive before (are you using it as a USB or FireWire drive?) Did you run chkdsk from the console or the command line to verify the drive integrity? ---
**Author:** ![Valgard](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/v/7feea3/32.png) [@Valgard](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Valgard)\ **Post date:** [October 22, 2005, 6:10pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/cant-format-hard-drive-parameter-is-incorrect/327396/7 "2005-10-22T18:10:41Z")
> [@treis](#): > > I’ve now run into the problem of not knowing how to make my computer boot off of a USB drive. Check your BIOS under “Boot Sequence”, if you have a halfway recent BIOS there will should be a choice for “USB Hard Drive” or something similar. Are you trying to format from Windows Explorer (i.e. right-click the drive letter and choose “Format”)? Have you tried the Windows Disk Managment tool (I think XP is same as W2K in this regard, right-click My Computer, choose Manager and go to Disk Management, see if it says anything about your drive or will/will not let you partition and format). ---
**Author:** ![Valgard](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/v/7feea3/32.png) [@Valgard](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Valgard)\ **Post date:** [October 22, 2005, 6:12pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/cant-format-hard-drive-parameter-is-incorrect/327396/8 "2005-10-22T18:12:11Z")
Duh, sorry - I missed your last post where you said that you are using Disk Management. [emily litella ON]Oh well, never mind then[emily litella OFF] ---
**Author:** ![treis](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/bc79bd/32.png) [@treis](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/treis)\ **Post date:** [October 22, 2005, 10:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/cant-format-hard-drive-parameter-is-incorrect/327396/9 "2005-10-22T22:35:11Z")
> [@Squee](#): > > Did you try running the disk manufacturers drive utility on the drive? Then again, I’ve never done this on an external drive before (are you using it as a USB or FireWire drive?) > > Did you run chkdsk from the console or the command line to verify the drive integrity? When I run chkdsk it says: The type of the file system is NTFS. Volume label is New Volume. WARING! F parameter not specified. Running CHKDSK in read-only mode. CHKDSK is verifying files (stage 1 of 3)… File verification completed. CHKDSK is verifying indexes (stage 2 of 3)… Deleting index entry $Extend in index $I30 of file 5. Deleting index entry $Secure in index $130 of file 5. Index verification complted. Errors found. CHKDSK cannot continue in read-only mode. What the heck is the F parameter and how do I specifiy it? ---
**Author:** ![treis](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/bc79bd/32.png) [@treis](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/treis)\ **Post date:** [October 22, 2005, 10:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/cant-format-hard-drive-parameter-is-incorrect/327396/10 "2005-10-22T22:42:31Z")
Ok now I am getting a new error message when I try to access the drive saying: “L:\ is not accessable Error performing inpage operation” Is this drive toast or is it a software thing? ---
**Author:** ![Squee](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/ba9def/32.png) [@Squee](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Squee)\ **Post date:** [October 22, 2005, 11:01pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/cant-format-hard-drive-parameter-is-incorrect/327396/11 "2005-10-22T23:01:01Z")
Well until you run the drive utility, yeah, it sounds like it’s toast. = ( Sorry. ---
**Author:** ![Bewildebeest](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/779978/32.png) [@Bewildebeest](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bewildebeest)\ **Post date:** [October 22, 2005, 11:56pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/cant-format-hard-drive-parameter-is-incorrect/327396/12 "2005-10-22T23:56:45Z")
> [@treis](#): > > What the heck is the F parameter and how do I specifiy it? The F parameter means “fix it” when you find a problem. chkdsk /F \: ---
**Author:** ![MyNameIsEarl](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/e36b37/32.png) [@MyNameIsEarl](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MyNameIsEarl)\ **Post date:** [October 23, 2005, 12:48am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/cant-format-hard-drive-parameter-is-incorrect/327396/13 "2005-10-23T00:48:48Z")
> [@Bewildebeest](#): > > The F parameter means “fix it” when you find a problem. > > chkdsk /F \: Exactly. You also mentioned errors logged to the System event viewer… Well, what does the System event viewer say exactly? ---
**Author:** ![Musicat](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/musicat/32/20189_2.png) [@Musicat](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Musicat)\ **Post date:** [October 23, 2005, 1:00am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/cant-format-hard-drive-parameter-is-incorrect/327396/14 "2005-10-23T01:00:36Z")
> [@Bewildebeest](#): > > chkdsk /F \: I believe the command format puts the modifying parameter “/F” AFTER the drive letter, as in standard DOS-based command syntax. ---
**Author:** ![Mangetout](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mangetout/32/19_2.png) [@Mangetout](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mangetout)\ **Post date:** [October 23, 2005, 1:14am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/cant-format-hard-drive-parameter-is-incorrect/327396/15 "2005-10-23T01:14:07Z")
> [@treis](#): > > I purchases a notebook HD off of eBay and am trying to set it up as an external drive. Could you provide a little more detail on exactly how you have it connected up? I ask because I bought a USB drive enclosure that would work optionally with FAT32 or NTFS-formatted drives, but required re-flashing in order to switch between these compatibilities. ---
**Author:** ![astro](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/9dc877/32.png) [@astro](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/astro)\ **Post date:** [October 23, 2005, 5:58am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/cant-format-hard-drive-parameter-is-incorrect/327396/16 "2005-10-23T05:58:32Z")
Doing _really_ low level stuff to a drive via a USB connection is a prescription for difficulties. You need to reconnect the drive (as a slave) to a working XP system’s IDE chain with a .25 \> 3.5 interface adapter (usually less than $ 10.) and repartition and reformat the drive. ---
**Author:** ![treis](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/bc79bd/32.png) [@treis](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/treis)\ **Post date:** [October 23, 2005, 6:21am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/cant-format-hard-drive-parameter-is-incorrect/327396/17 "2005-10-23T06:21:17Z")
> [@Bewildebeest](#): > > The F parameter means “fix it” when you find a problem. > > chkdsk /F \: Ok that did a bunch of stuff in DOS but nothing to fix my problem nor did it report any errors. > [@MyNameisEarl](#): > > Exactly. You also mentioned errors logged to the System event viewer… Well, what does the System event viewer say exactly? I don’t know how to access the System event viewer. > [@Mangetout](#): > > Could you provide a little more detail on exactly how you have it connected up? I ask because I bought a USB drive enclosure that would work optionally with FAT32 or NTFS-formatted drives, but required re-flashing in order to switch between these compatibilities. [This](http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=5208697713&rd=1&sspagename=STRK%3AMEWN%3AIT&rd=1) is the enclosure I have. It says nothing about about having to do anything to change between FAT32 and NTFS. In fact it says FAT32 won’t work with drives bigger than 32 gb so I assume its set up by default to work with NTFS if not both. > [@astro](#): > > Doing _really_ low level stuff to a drive via a USB connection is a prescription for difficulties. You need to reconnect the drive (as a slave) to a working XP system’s IDE chain with a .25 \> 3.5 interface adapter (usually less than $ 10.) and repartition and reformat the drive. Hmm this could be a problem becuase I am working with a laptop here and don’t really have a CPU I could put it in. The plan was to transfer a ghost of my current HD to the new one and then put the new HD in my laptop and use my current HD as an external drive. If I pulled my current HD and put it in the external enclosure r could I boot from that and format the new HD in my laptop? Would that work? ---
**Author:** ![astro](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/9dc877/32.png) [@astro](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/astro)\ **Post date:** [October 23, 2005, 2:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/cant-format-hard-drive-parameter-is-incorrect/327396/18 "2005-10-23T14:53:56Z")
> [@treis](#): > > Hmm this could be a problem becuase I am working with a laptop here and don’t really have a CPU I could put it in. The plan was to transfer a ghost of my current HD to the new one and then put the new HD in my laptop and use my current HD as an external drive. If I pulled my current HD and put it in the external enclosure r could I boot from that and format the new HD in my laptop? Would that work? That would require the notebook BIOS to be able to boot off directly (and preferentially) off an external USB connection. Assuming you are using XP some newer BIOS’s allow this while many older ones do not, and some will only do it off USB thumbdrives, not externally boxed harddrives as sometimes the external drive case’s USB/IDE IO interface requires a loaded driver from the OS beyond what the BIOS by itself can manage to provide. Given your difficulties to date I really wouldn’t suggest putting your primary (working) drive in this external case and putting the flaky drive in the machine unless you have an installable copy of your OS and all your data is _fully_ backed up as this could wind up munging both drives. Assuming the drive you bought is good (and the system simply “seeing” it does not guarantee this) you need to get it squared away before you think about ghost swapping. If you have no other XP box you can do this with (attachment to IDE chain) I would suggest downloading the install utilities from the drive manufacturer website and putting them on a CD or thumbdrive, remove the existing drive and put the flaky external into the notebook. _Make sure the drive is jumpered correctly_ . Boot from the CD or a floppy (if available) and let the drive install program fix and configure the drive (if possible). ---
**Author:** ![Valgard](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/v/7feea3/32.png) [@Valgard](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Valgard)\ **Post date:** [October 23, 2005, 10:12pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/cant-format-hard-drive-parameter-is-incorrect/327396/19 "2005-10-23T22:12:47Z")
> [@treis](#): > > I don’t know how to access the System event viewer. Right-click My Computer, choose Manage. Go to System Tools-Event Viewer-System. This will show all the various System events, look for stuff that happened at the same time that you plugged your external drive in and when you ran your various utilities, see which messages reference that drive and let us know. ---
**Author:** ![Digital\_Stimulus](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/aeb1de/32.png) [@Digital\_Stimulus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Digital_Stimulus)\ **Post date:** [October 24, 2005, 5:15am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/cant-format-hard-drive-parameter-is-incorrect/327396/20 "2005-10-24T05:15:03Z")
Perhaps you don’t want to go this route, but I thought I’d suggest it anyway. A [Linux SystemRescueCD](http://www.sysresccd.org/) might work for you.