Various listas wrote: >Select the option to "zero" the drive. That not only releases the >directory entries, but writes zeroes to the entire data portion of >the disk. > >I thought I read somewhere that this option was not well supported >with IDE drives, so that may work or not. The best thing to do would >be to write all over the drive, erasing whatever is on the disk. I >have no idea on how to do that, however. There might be some >utilities that would do that, but I don't know any. Still, try to >zero the drive and see what happens.
According to "Dan's Drive Maintenance" (http://www.delta.edu/dgschmid/drive.html) "I suggest doing a low-level format if you have a SCSI drive _or_ zero the blocks if you have an IDE drive. (IDE drives can't be low level formatted... older versions of Disk First aid looked like they would do this, but would actually only erase all the blocks twice!)." I don't know of any consumer-available utility that will actually low-level-format an IDE drive (I've read somewhere in another thread that that's done only in the factory), though I haven't looked hard. Seems like the zeroing option is the best we "end users" have, and it's not bad. Or a Radio Shack bulk tape eraser (which has sometimes enabled me to resurrect a misbehaving floppy disk), but I suspect it may damage some other components in a hard drive, so I've never tried it. Andrew Main -- G-Books is sponsored by <http://lowendmac.com/> and... Small Dog Electronics http://www.smalldog.com | Refurbished Drives | -- Check our web site for refurbished PowerBooks | & CDRWs on Sale! | Support Low End Mac <http://lowendmac.com/lists/support.html> G-Books list info: <http://lowendmac.com/lists/g-books.html> --> AOL users, remove "mailto:"; Send list messages to: <mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]> To unsubscribe, email: <mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]> For digest mode, email: <mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]> Subscription questions: <mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]> Archive: <http://www.mail-archive.com/g-books%40mail.maclaunch.com/> --------------------------------------------------------------- >The Think Different Store http://www.ThinkDifferentStore.com ---------------------------------------------------------------
