Have I destroyed my IDE harddrive with a low level format?

[TonyG]

I have a Quantam Bigfoot 6GB harddrive that I attemted to load linux on, and ended up with some partitions that I could not remove. Well, I decided that I would just low level format this thing since I have an old computer, 120Mhz, that has an option in the bios to allow for a low level format, but I started that over 36 hours ago and it is still running. I know that Bigfoots are not the most reliable but I would really like to have this thing back up and running with Windows 98se on it.

HELP!

 

[sean2002]

Well I can LLF (write zeros) to my 40gb IBM drive in about 1.5 hours, so I would say your drive is probably gone

 

[Workin']

Low-level formatting and writing zero's aren't the same thing.

All modern IDE drives (Bigfoot included) can only be LLF'd by a utility provided by their manufacturer. If the mfg. doesn't have one, then it can't be LLF'd. Only God knows what is happening to your drive. It could be hosed. Or not.

Next time, use something like the linux version of fdisk or Partition Magic to remove those pesky linux partitions.

 

[Viper0329]

Try and see if you can LLF it

 

[spanky]

i had a compaq with an amd k6-233 & a seagate 4.3gb ide drive. llf took like 12 hours using the seagate utils. with a p120 cpu & 6gb ide drive, i could see how it would take more than 36 hours to llf the drive. a better idea might be to just go to maxtor's (which now owns quantum) website and see if u can get a hold of the util to llf the drive. btw, linux partitions can't be removed by fdisk, but the manufacturer's utils or software like partition magic would be able to remove those partitions without a problem.

 

[Workin']

<< linux partitions can't be removed by fdisk >>

Just to be clear, linux comes with it's own version of fdisk which WILL remove the partitions. MS-DOS fdisk will not, as stated.

 

[TonyG]

Well, it seems that my effort was in vane. I went ahead and cancelled the llf becuase I figured it was hosed already, but when I rebooted the computer it booted up with the Linux screen! It hadn't even erased anything off of the drive. It still seems to run fine.

Oh well.

 

[Mday]

MS's fdisk will remove linux partitions. just have it delete a non DOS partition.

 

[PepperBreath]

What Mday said. Just select "Delete NON DOS Partition" on the menu and you should be all set.