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What is a low level format?

A

airfoil

Golden Member
What is a low level format, exactly? I bought this used 40gig Maxtor from FS/FT which turned out to be a dud. The seller shipped me another drive right away, and I connected it and all seemed fine. However, when I tried to access it from My Computer, the rig hung.

So I try formatting it from Disk Management, but it was going terrible slow. I cancel the format, then download and run Maxtor's Powermax, which tells me initially that the drive is failing and that I should RMA it. Turns out the RMA wont work, since Maxtor was referring me to the PC manufacturer for warrantly claims.

Anyways, I run the whole battery of tests on it after I perform a Low Level Format, all of which complete successfully with no more errors/warnings.

So what is a LLF? Yeah, it is writing all zeroes on the drive or something, but whats the rationale behind it? Could somebody please explain.

TIA
 
It's a method that creates the tracks and sectors on a hard disk. Low-level formatting creates the physical format that dictates where date is stored on the disk.
 
You didn't perform a low level format. What you did was a called a zero fill, which is exactly what it sounds like, it writes zeros to the entire drive with the purpose of completely clearing the drive off of everything including any lingering viruses or other problems that a simple format might not get rid of. Some disk utilities call this a LLF, but in actuality it isn't, and it is no longer possible for an enduser to LLF a drive.
 
Thanks. If there were bad sectors on the drive, could I assume that these have been 'marked as bad' and replaced from the 8mb 'store' that typically exists on a HDD? Is there a way I can tell if bad sectors do exist, and if they were overwritten at any point? Powermax did not throw up any messages about bad sectors being found while running the tests and the 'LLF'.
 
Another Q:

Since it is recommended as the last recommended action, I'm also wondering if the so-called LLF procedure puts any undue strain on a HDD? Writing zeroes to the drive in my mind would just be a write/read/verify sort of activity - is there something else to it?
 
Yes, any bad sectors should have been remapped, but they are replaced from a section of the drive that is not accessible or visible to the user. The SMART log, if it exists, may be able to tell you if sectors were remapped. If you weren't informed of bad sectors, then you probably don't have any.
 
A zero fill is no more strenuous than any other extended write. HD tests can get quite ingenious. A full-drive butterfly random write/read test can warm a drive up pretty good.

.bh.
 
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