A good low level format util?

[Mr Meltdown]

H'mm, IBMs DFT is good for recovering bad sectors but only works on IBM disks (the low level bit anyway)

Sooo, find me a good util that works on any disk.

Cheers,

MM

[streetster]

google is your friend mr M : here mind you it took well over a day to low level format a 40gb harddrive i had.. thought it would take a few hours, work up the next morning, still going :-/, but choose one of them, should do the trick

byebye
mark

[acidrainy]

Sorry to ask the stupid question, but what do you mean by low level format?

Would that be a step further than the good old "FORMAT c: /s" ?

[Mr Meltdown]

Low level format is a sector by sector zero fill (fills the disk with zeros) and totally blats the hard disk and often can clear non physical bad sectors.

I've just downloaded the newer IBM DFT as I had an old one, so it might work on the hitachi disk now.

CHeers,

MM

[streetster]

good luck matey, just dont wait up for it takes blooming years

[blockers]

Yeah, streetster right. This does take for ages! took pretty much all night for me....on my 40gb maxtor.

good luck

[Trickle]

I could be completely wrong, but my understanding always was that unlike scsi drives, there is no such thing as a low level format on IDE drives. Simply format and quick format.

Its probably different nowardays, but in ages past if you used a generic low level format utility on a IDE drive you could permanently kill it.

I do tend to go get the manufacturers own utils to format and arrange drives, however with all My Maxtor and Seagate drives the instructions have always said use with their util or just do it in windows - no preference.

[Mr Meltdown]

Well the New IBM DFT util is as I type thrashing it's way throught the little 6GB laptop disk. I think it might be terminal, but I got the owners work off it so that was the main thing.

The old DFT wouldn't work as it said it needed to be an IBM disk, the new version loves it.

I know it takes ages, I've done it plenty of times before.

CHeers,

MM

[Gr44]

low level just means it writes 1's and 0's all over the drive so all the data is GONE, format doesnt erase all the data, but simpliy bits of it, it will not kill your HDD alone, but this does make ALOT of heat, and without cooling it may well kill it.

[acidrainy]

Ahhh... much like a government wipe?

Could this bring back to life an old 6.4gig drive that I have. This drive is dead as far as I know :/

[Mr Meltdown]

It will only fix it if it has bad sectors that are not he result pf physical damage to the platter surface (i.e head crash due to shock of impact while HD is spinning).

So if it basically works then ot could well sort it out.

Cheers,

MM

[Mr Meltdown]

Having six fingers on each hand does NOT help me to type any better I've found.

CHeers,

MM