The ONLY way that you should low-level format an IDE drive is with the
low-level program from the manufacturer. If you use a BIOS... well,
you've just toasted your hard disk.
I've done this once or twice before ;).
- Mike
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--- Michael B. Trausch, [EMAIL PROTECTED] 100% MS Free! ---
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Tagline for Saturday, April 17, 1999:
A computer's attention span is as long as it's power cord.
.sig file by: LinuxTaRT version 2.27
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On Sat, 17 Apr 1999 [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote:
>Date: Sat, 17 Apr 1999 13:21:44 -0700
>From: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
>To: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
>Cc: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
>Subject: Re: Partition problem
>
>Einar Sundgren wrote:
>
>> As it seems nothing is wrong with hda but on hdb first it takes really long time
>> to do the check and then this irq timeout. It occured after that i did a BIOS
>> low level format of hdb and has been like that eversince, I have run all fs
>> check utilities I know about but none can find the error, the drive is
>> mountable and read/write able so the problem is as i said not very big but
>> still a problem.
>> The drive is a IDE drive manufactured for apple by quantum and i run it on a
>> PC, maby the solution is there I don�t even know if that matters i mean it
>> still is an IDE drive
>
>As far as I know, IDE drives should not be low level formatted by BIOS. IDE drives
>have
>on one side of a platter, special signals to align the heads precisely to the desired
>cylinder. BIOS will low level format ALL sides, erasing this information. Could
>this be
>causing your problem? Too late now, but there are programs to non-destructively
>low-level
>format IDE drives.
>
>William M. Jones
>[EMAIL PROTECTED]
>
