Re: How do you LOW FORMAT a hard drive
If you really must do low level formating and the disk is WD then there used to be an appropriate tool (wd_diag.exe) on their www pages. This tool will also tell you if low level formating might help. On Sat, 11 Sep 1999, Patrik Magnusson wrote: I need to Low Format a hard drive - I have a drive that has at some stage Some BIOSes lets you do this. But you shouldn't ever low level format a hard drive. It isn't necessary any more since the 80's. If you have a drive (ESPECIALLY an IDE drive) that can't simply be repartitioned with fdisk and formatted normally it's probably ruined.
RE: How do you LOW FORMAT a hard drive
Actually, low formatting most SCSI drives is useful since it tests the drive and updates the dud sector map with the results. SCSI and IDE drives that would be damaged in some way by low formatting *usually* return success with out doing anything when asked to do a low level format. IOW, hard drives are very smart now-a-days. Formatting a floppy drive IS a low level format combined with writing out the FAT for DOS. -Original Message- From: Guilherme Soares Zahn [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] Sent: Tuesday, September 14, 1999 9:18 AM To: William T Wilson Cc: Patrik Magnusson; debian-user@lists.debian.org Subject: Re: How do you LOW FORMAT a hard drive I need to Low Format a hard drive - I have a drive that has at some stage Some BIOSes lets you do this. But you shouldn't ever low level format a hard drive. It isn't necessary any more since the 80's. More that that, it's REALLY dangerous to do so in new IDE drives (something to do with geometry parameters, if I'm not mistaken)... Now, how would I LOW FORMAT a floppy disk??? []'s Guilherme Zahn
Re: How do you LOW FORMAT a hard drive
I need to Low Format a hard drive - I have a drive that has at some stage Some BIOSes lets you do this. But you shouldn't ever low level format a hard drive. It isn't necessary any more since the 80's. More that that, it's REALLY dangerous to do so in new IDE drives (something to do with geometry parameters, if I'm not mistaken)... Now, how would I LOW FORMAT a floppy disk??? []'s Guilherme Zahn
Re: How do you LOW FORMAT a hard drive
Guilherme grunted, But you shouldn't ever low level format a hard drive. It isn't necessary any more since the 80's. More that that, it's REALLY dangerous to do so in new IDE drives (something to do with geometry parameters, if I'm not mistaken)... I have an old one I'd like to try it on, but the bios doesn't do it. I stuck it in another machine briefly, and now it absolutely refuses to work as a primary (but is just fine as a slave). It's an old caviar 540 for the kids' machine. Right now they have my machine, because that machine can't boot from the slave (or even use it without a primary present), nor can it recognize more than 1024 cylinders (or use the alternate modes). So it sees my 8g drive as a 540 or so :( I noticed the box on a new 20G at sam's club yesterday claimed it had software to get around old bios's, but I'm not willing to pay $250 just to get an old 486 running (the kids' stuff is almost all windows, so I have to deal with bios problems :( rick Now, how would I LOW FORMAT a floppy disk??? That should happen on a regular formatk, shouldn't it? (the current command is superformat) --
Re: How do you LOW FORMAT a hard drive
As far as I can remember the old fixed disk controller used to be installed at paragraph C800:. To do a low level format we used to use the debug facility in DOS and do g C800:0005. I may be wrong, but this was 1986 on IBM PS/2s using 20MB hard disks, but a lot of legacy stuff seems to have pulled through - Original Message - From: Richard E. Hawkins [EMAIL PROTECTED] To: Guilherme Soares Zahn [EMAIL PROTECTED] Cc: debian-user@lists.debian.org Sent: 13 September 1999 14:18 Subject: Re: How do you LOW FORMAT a hard drive Guilherme grunted, But you shouldn't ever low level format a hard drive. It isn't necessary any more since the 80's. More that that, it's REALLY dangerous to do so in new IDE drives (something to do with geometry parameters, if I'm not mistaken)... I have an old one I'd like to try it on, but the bios doesn't do it. I stuck it in another machine briefly, and now it absolutely refuses to work as a primary (but is just fine as a slave). It's an old caviar 540 for the kids' machine. Right now they have my machine, because that machine can't boot from the slave (or even use it without a primary present), nor can it recognize more than 1024 cylinders (or use the alternate modes). So it sees my 8g drive as a 540 or so :( I noticed the box on a new 20G at sam's club yesterday claimed it had software to get around old bios's, but I'm not willing to pay $250 just to get an old 486 running (the kids' stuff is almost all windows, so I have to deal with bios problems :( rick Now, how would I LOW FORMAT a floppy disk??? That should happen on a regular formatk, shouldn't it? (the current command is superformat) -- -- Unsubscribe? mail -s unsubscribe [EMAIL PROTECTED] /dev/null
Re: How do you LOW FORMAT a hard drive
thanks, I'll give this a try. I'd sure like to avoid buying the disk if possible. Rick --
Re: How do you LOW FORMAT a hard drive
Guilherme == Guilherme Soares Zahn [EMAIL PROTECTED] writes: Guilherme Now, how would I LOW FORMAT a floppy disk??? superformat -- Ian Zimmerman Lightbinders, Inc. 2325 3rd Street #324, San Francisco, California 94107
Re: How do you LOW FORMAT a hard drive
hi Now, how would I LOW FORMAT a floppy disk??? fdformat /dev/fd0H1440 or stick the floppy into a dos machine ( not winXX ) have fun alvin
Re: How do you LOW FORMAT a hard drive
In article [EMAIL PROTECTED], Derek Alexander [EMAIL PROTECTED] writes: I need to Low Format a hard drive - I have a drive that has at some stage Some BIOSes lets you do this. /Patrik
Re: How do you LOW FORMAT a hard drive
On Sat, 11 Sep 1999, Patrik Magnusson wrote: I need to Low Format a hard drive - I have a drive that has at some stage Some BIOSes lets you do this. But you shouldn't ever low level format a hard drive. It isn't necessary any more since the 80's. If you have a drive (ESPECIALLY an IDE drive) that can't simply be repartitioned with fdisk and formatted normally it's probably ruined.
