On Apr 4, 2009, at 10:57 AM, Kris Tilford wrote:
>>> Will a magnet work OK and how heavy a magnet should it be? > > On Apr 3, 2009, at 10:41 PM, Wallace Adrian D'Alessio wrote: > >> You would make them unusable > > Is this true? What is the mechanism that makes them unusable? The data is comprised of manufacturer's data cylinders and servo data, in addition to user data. Any "erasure" method which compromises any of the manufacturer's or servo data will render the drive completely useless. Small system drives are always of the "fixed block architecture" type, wherein the formatting was accomplished at the time of manufacture. Small system drives have not had a true formatting/initializing capability, in the traditional sense, for a number of decades. The "format drive" command is usually treated as a "NOP" (i.e., no operation). Mainframe drives of the "count, key and data" type, which have NEVER been found on small systems, always reformatted each track as these were written. It is still possible to compromise these drives by erasing the manufacturer's cylinders. --~--~---------~--~----~------------~-------~--~----~ You received this message because you are subscribed Low End Mac's G3-5 List, a group for those using G3, G4, and G5 desktop Macs - with a particular focus on Power Macs. The list FAQ is at http://lowendmac.com/lists/g-list.shtml and our netiquette guide is at http://www.lowendmac.com/lists/netiquette.shtml To post to this group, send email to [email protected] To unsubscribe from this group, send email to [email protected] For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/g3-5-list?hl=en Low End Mac RSS feed at feed://lowendmac.com/feed.xml -~----------~----~----~----~------~----~------~--~---
