A recommendation on Low Level Formatting

The DiskInfo program reported my Western Digital drive rated as "Caution" and then it failed.

I tried to reformat to NTFS through the Win XP install disk but it stalled out at 1 %. I tried this another way by attempting to clone the drive but that didn't work either.

Would a Low Level format revive the drive?

And in that regard I saw this from a google search:

HDD LLF Low Level Format Tool

http://hddguru.com/software/HDD-LLF-Low-Level-Format-Tool/

Is this a reliable tool? Else, what procedure does MG recommend?

Or is the drive just shot from a reading of "Caution" ?

 

Running the WD Data LifeGuard's extended test will give you a better idea of the condition of the hard drive. The HDD Guru Low level format tool is similar to using a data wipe utility. It is, however, very good.

 

A good reminder about Data Life tools. I have not gone through this in a long time. Ok, I'll start with the WD utility and see what it finds.

And I'm glad you are aware of HDD Guru whatevs.

Since a number of my drives were gotten used on the 'Bay one had sector errors that Ghost found. I then used Spin Rite which is supposed to be a cure all. Later I found Spin Rite uses a technique that can harm HDs more than it's worth. This too was some time ago. This drive may have been a victim of Spin Rite but can no longer sort it out.

 

Datalife test turned up no errors at all.
I then used the WD refresh MBR.

Then I thought I made a good bootable cd to use the HDD Guru Low Level Format prog.

I burned the disk in Nero but am getting the NTLD is missing error.

I will not run such a program on a good disk in Windows. But I did not see where the ISO version of HDD Guru is installed.

Does the 'install" version of the program rather than the .exe make a removable cd to run the program?

To cut down on time here I'll get the install version and look at that in the meantime.

 

My laptop WD500 GB hdd suddenly went slow in many types of operations. And when I ran Windows 7 64bit, Disk Management tool, the same couldn't show any hard disks and got hung (only the tool got hung, not windows). Then I got a brand new WD 500 Gb hdd, installed fresh windows on it and nothing else. And then again I check Computer Management> Disk Management. And again the same result, the tool got hung up.
And if I ran any other disk management tool, like Partition Magic, it didn't hung up, but was very very slow in presenting its interface initially. I ran all its modules one by one, and no module showed any error on disk.

What to do now?