low level format

[De Joker]

I wanna low level format my harddisk, where can i find a program that does this and can this procedure damage your harddisk if it is done to often. I downloaded a small dos program (zap) from the ibm website but i don't know if it can be used on other brands as well. What are the pros and cons for low level formatting a harddsik. Thanks.

[daverme]

The only thing I've ever heard about low-level formatting an IDE drive is to NEVER, NEVER, EVER do it !!!

So why do you feel you need to?

[Axel]

if it's a western digital - they have a tool on their site to do it.

If there is anything on the drive at all you want to save - don't do it -

If you are doing some data destruction - a really good magnet will do the trick - repartitioning the drive and doing a full format will kill most things on there.... -

Take a huge file and save it multiple times under different names filling the disk - erase a few of them - scandisk & defrag - then do it again until the drive is clear again - that will wipe out everything.

If you are trying to rid yourself of a virus, beware - if it's in the boot sector - you might not know you failed until you lose the drive again.....

otherwise - we'd have to know more about why you think you want a low level format.....

[neo_otyugh]

go to downloads.com and look for maxllf
its a maxtor low level format utility and will work on any harddrive. i jsut used it on a 45 gig drive. the only time i hav eused it it is to wipe a drive that dual booted win98/linux or to get rid of some mean nasty viruses that survived unconditional formats. basically i wanted to rid my drive of anything that was in the boot sector of the drive.

[This message has been edited by neo_otyugh (edited 04-04-2001).]

[wyvrn]

Could not find maxllf at download.com . Did an alphabetical search under File and Disk Manangement. Any other ideas?

[Long Haired Hippie Phreek]

Ok, here is the real deal...
low level formating is not realy low level formating, there is no way to do that without opening up the drive (has been that way since servers were using 40mb hdds) but the realy early (like under 10mb and stuff) could be low level formated with software, and so the current name came from that. What we do now is we re-initialize hard drives, anyone that does scsi raid probably knows what I am talking about, but for ide-only people, it is like putting zeros on every bit of the drive, even the partition table, OS signature, bad track logs, everything that can possibly ever by accesed by software. It then re-initializes the drive, re-scanning for bad tracks and such, and it is like having a brand new hard disk (some utilities even map around bad sectors as they re-initialize, so a drive that was full of bad clusters looks like new). Don't do it too often, because the areas that you write to on the disk are not designed to be written to more than a few times, and if you mess them up, it is a dead drive. It is releativly safe the first time or 2 that you do it, but here are some safeguards...

1.) Use a NEW ata/33 cable (even if the drive is ata/66 or ata/100, use and ATA/33 cable.)
2.) Make sure that it is the only drive on the IDE channel, and that it is master (and not master through the cable select jumper).
3.) Make sure bios sees it correctly.
4.) Boot to a clean DOS boot disk (in windows 9X, type "format a: /s" from the command prompt, from 2k, you have to find a bootdisk(available online) for some dos based operating system, boot to it, and run the same command) with the low fomrat utility on it.
5.) Run the utility, if it has an option to scan for bad tracks/sectors, DO IT!
6.) Reboot and you have a pristine new (old) hard drive ready for your data craming ways!

[Long Haired Hippie Phreek]

Also, if you have a good name brand mainboard, the mainboard company proably has a low level formating utility for any drive you plug in! I think award has one for any mainboard and drive combo that has award bios on it too.