8.5 GB IBM DGVS SCSI HD

[Ludigdrums]

Can multiple FAT conversions using partition magic 4 physically damage a HD. Ex: Converting FAT16 to FAT32 and vice versa?! Scandisk now detects bad sectors and after running it a few times, the last time for 5 hours, it eventually said that it couldn't finish because another program or device was using it. Any ideas?!

[a Bill]

No, you have something running in the background.

[Ludigdrums]

Actually everything was shut down, no programs were running. Besides, usually if that's the case, it will tell you in a couple of min, not hours. Thanks though!

[Sammy]

Hi,

I know of know way that software can physically damage a Hard disk. I have been an engineer for almost 15 years and have never seen it.

The closest thing to physical damage you could do via software was the low level format command in some old bios chipsets. This would erase the format data on IDE drives which could not then be fixed without the correct utility from the drive manufacturer.

I would guess that the most likey cause is that your disk has had some form of minor crash at some point, damaging some sectors, or that the surface in this area was slightly below par and has now become unusable, or....( now moving into the realms of supposition )

Most new hard drives have bad sectors on them somewhere, but this is usually within a certain tolerance, I cant remember the actual figure but 1% springs to mind. It may be that when you first set up the disk with FAT 16, these sectors did not affect the layout of the disk. Changing to FAT 32 may have changed this as I have heard that FAT 32 is very picky about bad sectors and disk faults....

Maybe someone else can shed light on the reasons FAT32is so picky.