Archived from groups: alt.comp.periphs.mainboard.asus (
More info?)
You can't. The best you can do is write zeroes to the entire hard drive.
This is done with software from the HD mfr's website. This writes over
partitions and the HD master boot record, actually the entire HD writing
area. There's also software for "blanking" a hard drive. This software
writes 0s, 1s, 1s and 0s, etc multiple times to the HD. Believe Linux/Unix
have similar commands available as part of the OS. Some refer to either as
medium level formatting.
High level formatting is creating a file system for the OS involved. The
partition(s) are already created in this instance. An example of this is
the format.com for MS Fat/Fat32 file systems. MS Fdisk creates a
partition(s), and will create an MBR during the process. NTFS and its
partitions are different but are similar in purpose and level of formatting.
I do know some older Ultra-Scsi cards bios can low-level format a scsi HD in
excesss of 4GB. Not sure of today's technology. (showing my age...)
Another reply made a good description of a low-level format and why it can't
be done. If such proceeds, your HD may be unusable after such a process.
Put simply, the factory low-level format is what your PC expects based on
true physical CHS ... AND ... LBA in order to determine its geometry and
capacity.
"Fred Zimmerman" <silversw2000@yahoo.com> wrote in message
news:a695a242.0406010457.29aa71cf@posting.google.com...
> I have a home-built PC with ASUS AMD motherboard using
> VIA/AMD 761 chipset (M 170 CD w. package).
>
> Do I do hard-drive low level format via main BIOS screen/
> functions?
>
> I've never done low level hard-drive format procedure before,
> and have no idea how it's done.
>
> Fred Z