This message is from the T13 list server.
I've just noticed that my Maxtor Fireball doesn't actually have Word 89 and Word 90 set of its identify block.
Is there any other way of finding out how long it will take for the drive to format? It would always be nice to inform the user that their hours sat waiting for the machine haven't been in vain!!!
Fun.
Last I checked, outside of the ATA op xA1 Identify, ATAPI had no standard way of helping the host to guesstimate time to format, ... an omission which discouraged hosts from offering op x04 "Format" as a choice in the GUI. What SCSI over whatever did more or less include, was a way to report percent complete, so that once the user recklessly chose to launch a Format, the GUI could then hope format will progress linearly, and thereby guesstimate a completion time.
Pat LaVarre
