One thing I have yet to try is to connect to PC SATA port and format from there.
This is the first thing you should have tried. As far as I know any other method you described supposed not to work.
I will try with a direct sata connection to my PC motherboard. Hopefully, this will work right away.
Update: It works!
What I did:
1. Connect the HDD to direct sata connection in a desktop PC, turn on PC. Was surprised to see the HDD had 3 partitions. AFAIK last formatting on laptop via USB was 1 big partition.
2. Clean the disk using diskpart in windows.
3. Re-initialize the HDD using the disk management in windows to GPT.
4. Format the HDD to NTFS, one partition. I check again with diskpart, there are 1 big partiton and 1 small reserve partition, I didn't bother to merge them.
5. Turn off PC, detach sata connection, and transfer HDD into Q10pro.
6. Turn on Q10pro, and boom! The HDD is seen in media center!
Well, I should have done this in the first place. Wasted one day trying to do it via USB.
PS: Sorry to post this here, since I started asking if the firmware could help, might as well finish it here.