Help With Low Level Formating

[Daviet]

I Need to low level format my HD (Guantum Bigfoot 6.4 gig) but am not sure about the commands.. Im using award bios and have three options under Low Level format Utility.

1.Select Drive
2.Bad track list
: Auto scan bad track
: Add Bad Track
: Modify Bad Track
: Delete Bad Track
: Clear Bad Track Table
3.Preformat

My drive is completly messed and I cant find any INFO on this, they have nothing on Awards URL. Im guessing I first go to "Auto scan bad track" and then "Delete Bad track" after I find out which is bad.. Or Do I simply go to Preformat?

Any help would be great ;o)

 

[Talon]

Go to http://www.quantum.com/ and access their support pages. Read the FAQ's. Hard drive manufacturers have diagnostic and formatting utilities that you can download free to help you determine and fix the problem. I think you have to run them anyways should you need to RMA a bad drive. You didn't say what's messed about the drive or why you believe you need to do a low level format.

 

[Bartman39]

Uh I think its a no-no to low level format an IDE drive, with SCSI thats a different story... I`d do what Talon said and get more info on the drive and what its problems are...

 

[MrCookie]

I know that a few older mobo's had the low level format utility in the bios, so it would make sense to me that you could low-level an ide drive.

Not sure how thorough it is , but the commands for formatting are:
format c: \U\C\S

 

[Daviet]

Well, heres the thing.. Its Dead, I formated, Fdisks, the hole nine yards, But It wont let me load any OS with out it crashing or freezing, I tried puting another HD in and it worked great. SO I have been told for a Last Resort I should Low Level Format. I even dl'ed some utility software from Quantum and They Will only load to a certain point and freeze, I tried switching the ram and everything else, Im sure its all in the HD.. I have used it for 2 years and just starting having problems now.

 

[jeans2nd]

On older PC's I low level formatted from the BIOS all the time, but those were usually SCSI drives. On the newer IDE or EIDE you are much better off using the low level format utility from the manufacturer. But here's the bad thing - the reason they started making IDE/EIDE drives was because they were so much cheaper than SCSI but, they are also MUCH less reliable! Even if you low level format these things, there's no way of knowing if this drive will fail on you again and how soon. You might consider investing a few dollars for peace of mind. Good luck!

 

[Rakkis]

Did you add a new IDE device on the same bus as the hard drive? I've forgotten to change the dip switches a couple times and once the drive still worked for a bit after you added a device but the system hung after a few mins. Fixed when the changes were made.

 

[Talon]

Award does have a brief description of the items you listed. It's in .pdf format (Adobe Acrobat, which I hate using) at
http://www.phoenix.com/pcuser/BIOS/setup_information.htm
Scroll down and select the "to August 96" file. The information is on page 32 or 33. Phoenix, who owns Award, advises to use the drive manufacturers instructions instead.

From Quantum's site (support> knowledge base> search for low level format):

I need to low level format my Bigfoot drive, how do I do this? (FAQ #000803-0008)

Description:

You cannot low-level format the disk drive. The servo, sector layout, and defect-management information contained in the low-level format is designed to last the life of the drive. This information and the way it is written cannot be duplicated in any way outside of the factory. Drives manufactured today ignore low-level format routines.

(This FAQ applies to Bigfoot, Bigfoot CY, Bigfoot TX, and the Bigfoot TS ATA hard drives.)

Solution:

Some manufactures do have routines they label as a low-level formatter. These routines actually perform a write, read, and verify of the drive's user data sectors, they don't actually low-level format the disk drive. However, these type of utilities can be used to purge the drive of a corrupted master boot record, a boot block virus, or to clear any recoverable bad sectors or clusters. Quantum's DataEraser utility has these capabilities and can be downloaded free from our web site.

For Further Review:

See FAQ #000608-0000 - How To Erase Your Hard Drive Using Disk Manager or DataEraser.

See FAQ #000120-0001 - I need a low-level format utility to clear my drive clean of bad sectors.

See FAQ #000503-0017 - Can I low-level format my Quantum ATA hard drive?

 

[yoshald]

I've used Microscope to rescue several hard drives using its low level format. They claim it handles all IDE drives, and I've never seen otherwise. http://www.micro2000.com/microscope.htm Email them and see if they have a demo you can download.