lower level format ??

[c3p0-11n]

Hi ALL http://www.sysopt.com/forum/wink.gif

Is a lower level format equal to a zero fill on a hard drive?

I hear of the importance of a good format for a new install and find a zero fill program hard to find and found a lower level format .exe. It is very slow though.

any thoughts
Bruce

[c3p0-11n]

Be aware of the lower level format. http://www.sysopt.com/forum/biggrin.gif I just ran it on a drive with bad sectors and now it is undetectable by anythin I have. Man do I need help now

[Dave_H]

Couple questions,
Does your BIOS still detect the drive?
How about fdisk?
What kind of drive is it?
Dave

[c3p0-11n]

well Dave_H bios does not see tyhe hd and fdisk says no storage device present. Seagate 2.1gig

The drive had a few bad sectors I know of and maybe it died dead.

[c3p0-11n]

fxcapt I did not save the info that I know of. would there be a way to rewrite track 0? I would guess NOT with out the information. Then even if I did save the Track 0, low level format is not zero fill.

Does anyone know of a genaric zero fill. Norton will but the program runs in win.9x I think. Maybe I don't need it that bad.

Thanks for the info
Bruce

[HotRod9mm]

fxcapt or anyone?


What is a good low level software? I have 2 hdds' that both spin and show up in post but then I get the doomed "Disk Error"....Or any ideas would be greatly appreciated....

Thx....

1-Quantum KX Fireball
1-WD Caviar

[fxcapt]

Low level format should only be used if track 0 on the drive is corrupt! Track 0 is where the drive ID lives, and now its nameless. The low level prog that I have will save the info, format track 0, then write the info back to track 0. Saved several drives with this one.

[This message has been edited by fxcapt (edited 04-26-2001).]

[BBA]

Low level will only write zeros to every sector of the drive. It's best use is to realign the sectors and also allows removal of stubborn virus's.

It will not stop bios from recognizing the drive.

It will remove EZ-Drive, or any other bios overlay utility. These overlay utilities are used when your system bios can not correctly detect your hard drive.

If you have this symptom, simply reinstall EZ-Bios, or another overlay application, which are downloadable from many hard drive manufacturer websites.

You will still have to partition and format the drive after this is done.

[c3p0-11n]

Thanks BBA

I was going to try the seatools download and hucked the drive to another board. The board rec. the drive and seatool says it is bad,with damaged surface.

Thanks for the info
Bruce