Low vs High Level Formatting

[DrDr]

Quick question: Several users had posted messages regarding formatting the existing c: drive to reinstall Windows XP and several users responded that this can be done by booting to the CD (XP PRO) and installing "fresh," prior to which it gives you the option to format.

I'm assuming that Windows XP performs a low-level format.

Is this true?

Is there any advantage to getting the drive utilities from your HD manufacturer (mine is Maxtor) to perform a High Level format if your drive is functioning well?

I have a poor, somewhat rudimentary understanding of what the formatting process actually achieves in terms of sector allocation, etc., and therefore, don't really understand what I could gain in a high level format.

Thanks

 

[Aves]

You have it backwards, high level is what Windows does, low level are what drive utilities do.

 

[Jmmsbnd007]

It does a normal format. You only do a LLF if you have to (really bad virus, bad sectors, etc).

 

[ElFenix]

no, windows does a high level format. for low level you'd have to use the HDD maker's utility

EDIT: damn, 3 replies in 1 minute

 

[FoBoT]

the OS does a high level format
this is all that 99.5% of end users EVER need to do

low level formatting is done either by a utility program or directly from a controller (like scsi controllers)

it is EXTREMELY unlikely that you need to do a low level format on a hard drive and doing it improper will screw up your drive

if you are having OS (well, windows OS anyway) problems that you don't feel are getting fixed with patches etc, then reformat your drive and reinstall your OS

you can run a utility from the hard drive manufacturer to test the drive (IBM has an especially good test , DFT), but don't low level format it

 

[Goosemaster]

yeah, only SCSI drives, because of their low-platter density should be low-level formatted if at all....


THe platters are so dense now that it could potentially screw up your drive because of any error

ALso if you loose power in the middle of formatting, your drive is toast

 

[Nosaj]

ALso if you loose power in the middle of formatting, your drive is toast

Run power, you're free!

I think you meant lose.

 

[busmaster11]

Originally posted by: DrDr
Quick question: Several users had posted messages regarding formatting the existing c: drive to reinstall Windows XP and several users responded that this can be done by booting to the CD (XP PRO) and installing "fresh," prior to which it gives you the option to format.

I'm assuming that Windows XP performs a low-level format.

Is this true?

Is there any advantage to getting the drive utilities from your HD manufacturer (mine is Maxtor) to perform a High Level format if your drive is functioning well?

I have a poor, somewhat rudimentary understanding of what the formatting process actually achieves in terms of sector allocation, etc., and therefore, don't really understand what I could gain in a high level format.

Thanks

What exactly is a low level format? Whatever it is, I know drive utils haven't done them for many years, that is, since drives were first UDMA, around the 1 gig mark or so...

I don't really know the difference, but I know there is one between low level and the standard full, or bit-by-bit raw write... May just be something with the boot sectors or somehting, but doubtful.

 

[bolsen]

Originally posted by: Goosemaster
yeah, only SCSI drives, because of their low-platter density should be low-level formatted if at all....


THe platters are so dense now that it could potentially screw up your drive because of any error

ALso if you loose power in the middle of formatting, your drive is toast

You know, I have used the scsi utils to format my drive... and 2x in a row... it went through... but didn't actually format. I haven't tried it since

 

[bozo1]

What exactly is a low level format? Whatever it is, I know drive utils haven't done them for many years, that is, since drives were first UDMA, around the 1 gig mark or so...

Low level formatting was needed to be done on old MFM, RLL and ESDI drives many years ago. Basically it was similar to formatting a floppy disk - the drive lays down track and sector information onto the platters. Over time, the heads would drift causing them to have difficulty reading the data. Every year or so, it was recommended that you low-level format your drive again to rewrite the track/sector information to the platters at the location to where the heads had drifted. Also through that process, the drive would map out any bad sectors it found so the operating system would not see them. After that, you were good to go for another year or so.

When IDE drives came out, manufacturers started hard coding the track/sector information onto the bottom platter of the drives. The read/write heads would sync to those tracks - no need to worry about head drift anymore. Performing a low-level format on these drives would render them unusable. Early on, you could do that through your system BIOS but very soon afterwards, drive manufacturers programmed the drives to accept the low-level commands but actually do nothing so as not to kill the drive.

Since about 1991, no IDE drive can be low-level formatted. What the utility from your drive manufacturer does is nothing more than scan the drive for defects, map those out at the drive level, and do nothing more except possible erasing the boot record/partition table, depending on the utility.

It's unfortunate that many drive manufacturers started using the term 'low-level format' for those utilites as that is not what they are doing but they did so to appease the old timers that still had it stuck in their head that they needed to do it once a year.

 

[tcsenter]

Since about 1991, no IDE drive can be low-level formatted. What the utility from your drive manufacturer does is nothing more than scan the drive for defects, map those out at the drive level, and do nothing more except possible erasing the boot record/partition table, depending on the utility.

You are correct that a true "low level format" no longer exists with the advent of IDE drives. What they call "low level format" today is in fact a "zero write" or "wipe" utility that writes zeros to the drive according to a bias ratio.

Zero write or wipe utilities are still very valuable, especially if you want to definitively remove all traces of a boot sector virus, a drive overlay utility, or to 'wipe' your drive clean before selling it so that your data can not be easily recovered using common recovery utilities.