I have this 2 tb seagate pipline advanced format and it won't format and it says it is write protected in hard disk low level format tool. I have tried writing zeroes to it using wd western life's guard. It does however show up in the device manager.
As you mention" Device Manager" I presume you are using Windows.
Try using diskpart to alter the HDD.
Open a Command prompt by typing cmd into the start menu
Type diskpart and press Enter.
Type list volume and press Enter.
Type select volume #, where # is the number of the drive that's giving you the "write-protected" error. In my case, I ended up typing select volume 3.
Type attributes disk clear readonly and press Enter.
And that should fix the issue..... should....
Or you could just try giving the disk a format from diskpart.
WARNING diskpart can seriously break stuff so double check stuff before hitting enter.
I've already tried that. How do you format it from diskpart?
I typed clean and it said done but when I try to create a new partiiton or initialize the disk I get a cyclic redundancy error.
I still haven't figured it out. Is there any special formating software that will format anything?
I still need help
I would give up if I were you. Those hard drives have a hardware lockout in the firmware, which prevents them from working with a normal S-ATA controller. They are not meant for use in a normal PC.
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A quick question, how old is your motherboard?
Also have you tried CHKDSK with the /f flag?
I fixed it about two months ago one day... I add to use a random 4 mb iso file to a flashdrive to get hdd to initiate with my normal hdds unplugged then I plugged everything back in and it worked.... It mimics direct tv cables boxes or something but worked for my 2tb hdd...