windows was unable to complete the format

Folks:

I'm installing Windows Vista on a new home-built computer. I've got two
SATA disk drives. I've successfully formatted the first and everything runs
fine. I've connected the second SATA drive, but when I boot into Vista and
try to format the drive, the system spins for a while and then returns
"Windows was unable to complete the format"

I found this support issue, but it looks fairly old (february). Should I
ask for and install this hotfix? Or do you think there is something else
going on?

Thanks,