For the heck of it I'd like to try:

I've got a laptop HD plugged into my desktop as a USB drive.

It's a 120 GB drive but it's partitioned from a partial windows setup. I see I've got a right click format option for them individually... but is there a way to "unpartition" this drive then format it?

Hi Rick,
I think you can do it with Partition Magic

Thanks Shaved. I formatted each of them individually then ran checkdisk on them and there were no problems. Does that confirm that this is a good hard drive?

Do you have a working PC you can connect it up to and store/retrieve some data from it?

Cap, it's a brand new drive ;)

Read Rick's other post because he's doing the N00b thing.
https://www.askmehelpdesk.com/laptops/new-hd-but-windows-setup-cant-find-85677.html

Hehe haha, I posted it separately as it was sort of a separate issue. I'm about ready to throw my hands up, buy this new HD from my dad and tell him to get a new laptop.