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Old 25-09-2011, 04:20   #1
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Low Level Formatting Tools
Can anyone recommend a low level formatting tool thats half decient and doesnt have to be free either.

I have tried the manufacturers one and for some reason its not finding the drive yet the bios is.
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Old 25-09-2011, 08:34   #2
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Re: Low Level Formatting Tools
have a look at Hiren's boot CD, or SystemRescueCD http://www.sysresccd.org/Main_Page

they have tools like Ranish http://www.ranish.com/part/
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Old 25-09-2011, 08:52   #3
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Re: Low Level Formatting Tools
Why do you want to do a low-level format? Thought doing that went out years ago!

Personally I'd be inclined to use the manufacturers own tools to do that, which I see you've already tried - is the BIOS up-todate?
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Old 25-09-2011, 11:53   #4
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Re: Low Level Formatting Tools
another shout for Hiren's. it holds a very useful tool set in one easy place. create a bootable USB pendrive with it and away you go. I use it pretty much every week at work for testing something or other.
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Old 25-09-2011, 13:25   #5
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Re: Low Level Formatting Tools
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Originally Posted by LSainsbury View Post
Why do you want to do a low-level format? Thought doing that went out years ago!

Personally I'd be inclined to use the manufacturers own tools to do that, which I see you've already tried - is the BIOS up-todate?
drive has bad clusters and wanna see if it will mark them as unusable as my sister doesnt wish to replace the drive now as my neice is having a new laptop for christmas.
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Old 25-09-2011, 13:38   #6
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Re: Low Level Formatting Tools
Modern drives are built with spare sectors and the drive's firmware brings them into use as required and marks off bad sectors. If it's run out of spare sectors the drive is in a bad way and probably heading for a failure sometime soon.
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Old 25-09-2011, 14:14   #7
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Re: Low Level Formatting Tools
if it fails it fails and ive told her that but if i can patch it up just until christmas its even better.
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Old 25-09-2011, 15:26   #8
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Re: Low Level Formatting Tools
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Originally Posted by Welshchris View Post
if it fails it fails and ive told her that but if i can patch it up just until christmas its even better.
If you've access to a copy of 'Spinrite' run that on it. Level 2 will attempt to read and rewrite all sectors. It will also attempt to replace bad sectors. Details here:

http://www.grc.com/srrecovery.htm

That's the nearest thing to 'magic' you'll find.
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Old 25-09-2011, 18:52   #9
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Re: Low Level Formatting Tools
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Originally Posted by Welshchris View Post
drive has bad clusters and wanna see if it will mark them as unusable as my sister doesnt wish to replace the drive now as my neice is having a new laptop for christmas.
Low-level format will break the mechanism used for that so I wouldn't suggest it.

Spinrite or MHDD as DaiNasty said. You want to do a surface scan & wipe not a low level format.
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Old 25-09-2011, 19:44   #10
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Re: Low Level Formatting Tools
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Today, an end-user, in most cases, should never perform a low-level formatting of an IDE or ATA hard drive, and in fact it is often not possible to do so on modern hard drives outside of the factory
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Disk_formatting
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Old 25-09-2011, 19:48   #11
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Re: Low Level Formatting Tools
Lsainsbury most of the manufacturers software gives a low level format function.

I performed Low Level formats on two of my seagate drives in order to destroy the data on the before i sent back to get replaced and Seagate Support told me to do this.
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Old 25-09-2011, 20:02   #12
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Re: Low Level Formatting Tools
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Originally Posted by Welshchris View Post
Lsainsbury most of the manufacturers software gives a low level format function.
Errr...post #3

Quote:
Originally Posted by Welshchris View Post
I performed Low Level formats on two of my seagate drives in order to destroy the data on the before i sent back to get replaced and Seagate Support told me to do this.
Don't think I've ever sent a drive back to the manufacturer.

I've only ever had one drive fail on me - three points to anybody who can guess the manufacturer / model of that one!
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Old 25-09-2011, 20:05   #13
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Re: Low Level Formatting Tools
i sent two back to seagate and they replaced with a different model after it was found the model i had it was problematic with firmware and was causing my system to lockup.
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Old 25-09-2011, 20:24   #14
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Re: Low Level Formatting Tools
Ah yeah - the firmware that screwed up.
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Old 25-09-2011, 21:05   #15
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Re: Low Level Formatting Tools
Lee's correct, it's no longer possible to do a low level format as it was with early drives. The manufacturer's software fakes it by reading the re-allocated sector table and blanking the sectors in use.

You simply cannot get to the low level any longer and as Lee said, if you could it would break the drive.
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