Low-Level Format Questions...

[nightowl]

I have an IBM laptop drive that has been giving me problems but diagnostics report is as OK. I am thinking about doing a low-level format on the drive to see if that will clear up the problems. What program do I need to do this? I already have IBM's DFT but, I think that it only goes up to 8GB.

 

[Jiggz]

Low level format is not necessary to make sure you rid your HDD of problems. Usually, a clean slate installation is more than enough to ensure the HDD is not the cause of the problem. Clean slate means, Fdisk and Format the HDD. Unless, you have an underlay software (Disk Manager, etc. . .) installed on your HDD then maybe you will have to do a low level format. Check IBM, since each manufacturer has their own program for doing this.

 

[TunaBoo]

It wont do a true low level format. I couldn't explain how without busting out some Scott Muller, but all modern "low level format programs" do is zero out the drive and check for bad sectors. A modern drive has the track info hard coded, so it cannot just re-do that like in the old days (1 gig HD days).

 

[grant2]

IDE drives have never had low-level formatting (at least not since *MY* old days when you were happy to have a 20 megger)... its use was for those obscure RFM/MMR/whatever drives. I've been told a true LLF could/would destroy an IDE drive.

This guy sounds like my ex girlfriend, everytime she got a virus from friends sending her porno pix or her el-cheapo HD assembled by untrained monkies in the jungle of vietnam would grind away to compensate for her running windows 98 with 256kb of ram she would beg me "grant can we low-level format my hard drive, i just KNOW there are pesky files clogging it that you can't get rid of with fdisk alone!" ... she just wouldn't believe me that her computer was running so slow because she insisted on the cheapest, slowest celeron processor she could find with a 1-hertz bus speed that was all tapped out running her integrated sound, video, network card, i/o, and on-case LED display at once.

There must be a sexy sound to the phrase "low level format," it just draws computer neophytes to it like a flame.

 

[nightowl]

I had read some other members of low-level formatting their drives and it fixed their problems. I thought that it was worth a try since Dell would not replace the drive. I can run IBM's DFT and Dell's diagnostic all day and not get any errors, but I still get disk errors in Event Viewer and now Win2k will freeze at random times and it will almost always freeze when I run scan disk in Win2k.

 

[bozo1]

<< I had read some other members of low-level formatting their drives and it fixed their problems >>


They may think they are doing a low-level format, but they aren't. As was previously said, all they are doing is wiping the partition table and/or checking the drive for bad sectors. A regular format will check for bad sectors. You may have some bad sectors that have cropped up. Repartitioning and reformatting will map those out for you.

 

[Jiggz]

I believe with the widespread use of the term &quot;Low Level Format&quot; including manufacturers in fact, we can presume we are referring to &quot;Zero'ing the HDD&quot;. Which in tech terms meaning &quot;Just like out of the factory&quot;. And it is in fact required to remove some programs like HDD Overlay software which are emmbedded into the boot sectors. If you think you must do such &quot;Zero'ing&quot; (or LLF) then follow the instruction of the manufacturer. I don't it's gonna hurt but I doubt it'll fix your problem unless it's caused by a boot sector problem like overlay softwares.