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30-05-2005, 12:45

I thought low level formatting is something done by the disk manufacturer and can't be changed?

Maybe booting with a windows 98 start up disk and running an fdisk partition deletion,then maybe either an unconditional format A:format c:/u/s (think thats right) or an fdisk /mbr to have a bash at sorting the boot record

from a google search http://www.pcguide.com/ref/hdd/geom/formatLow-c.html

Warning: You should never attempt to do a low-level format on an IDE/ATA or SCSI hard disk. Do not try to use BIOS-based low-level formatting tools on these newer drives. It's unlikely that you will damage anything if you try to do this (since the drive controller is programmed to ignore any such LLF attempts), but at best you will be wasting your time. A modern disk can usually be restored to "like-new" condition by using a zero-fill utility.

30-05-2005, 12:45	#9
zing_deleted Guest Posts: n/a	Re: Won't detect HDD I thought low level formatting is something done by the disk manufacturer and can't be changed? Maybe booting with a windows 98 start up disk and running an fdisk partition deletion,then maybe either an unconditional format A:format c:/u/s (think thats right) or an fdisk /mbr to have a bash at sorting the boot record from a google search http://www.pcguide.com/ref/hdd/geom/formatLow-c.html Warning: You should never attempt to do a low-level format on an IDE/ATA or SCSI hard disk. Do not try to use BIOS-based low-level formatting tools on these newer drives. It's unlikely that you will damage anything if you try to do this (since the drive controller is programmed to ignore any such LLF attempts), but at best you will be wasting your time. A modern disk can usually be restored to "like-new" condition by using a zero-fill utility.