Low level format?

[confoundicator]

I have heard this term bounced around, and I'm not sure of what people are talking about.

Every time I've reformatted I've done it by booting from a floppy, deleting all partitions and then creating new ones with fdisk, then going to the DOS prompt and typing "format c:". Does this <i>not</i> completely wipe the drive? If not than what does?

<font color=blue>Insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting a different result.
-Einstein</font color=blue><P ID="edit"><FONT SIZE=-1><EM>Edited by confoundicator on 07/12/03 09:46 PM.</EM></FONT></P>

 

[kinetic_tw]

Low Level Formatting is a process done at the factory which creates the sectors/tracks etc on the drive. There are utilities available from the manufacturers to do this. It's only ever done (to my knowledge) when there's severe drive damage, in an attempt to repair.

A low level format will erase *EVERYTHING* on a drive. Not only files and folders, but partitions/etc as well.

Every time I've reformatted I've done it by booting from a floppy, deleting all partitions and then creating new ones with fdisk, then going to the DOS prompt and typing "format c:". Does this not completely wipe the drive?

Yes. This completely erases all data stored on the drive. You dont even have to delete the partions, you could just format the current partitions and the data would still be gone. LLF is not for your normal 'format and reinstall' job.

 

[Toejam31]

What you've heard people talking about is really more of a "middle" level format, since a true low level format can only be done by the manufacturer at a factory.

The LLF that can be done by the user can be found on downloadable disk utilities from the drive manufacturers, and is usually listed as Drive Erase, or Zero Filling.

The process is used to remove all traces of previous data on a drive, including partitions.

It can also be used to "mark" bad sectors, so that data cannot be written to these areas again. It will also remove boot sector viruses, if there is no other means of getting rid of them.

It's not unusual to zero-out a drive when it first arrives, to test for and possibly repair any problems that occur during shipping. I've made a habit of it, and as a result, rarely encounter problems when partitioning and installing operating systems. (I <i>always</i> zero-out replacement drives from a manufacturer, in particular, especially if I see any S.M.A.R.T errors during the POST).

Here's an article from The PC Guide which will explain the subject in more detail:

<A HREF="http://www.pcguide.com/ref/hdd/geom/formatUtilities-c.html" target="_new">Low-Level Format, Zero-Fill and Diagnostic Utilities</A>

Toey

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[chandanarahul]

Follow the steps and it';; do what u want to do

boot to a:\ and

debug
-F 200 L1000 0 {- will appear on screen don't type it}
-A CS:100 {- will appear on screen don't type it}
xxxx:0100 MOV AX,301
xxxx:0103 MOV BX,200
xxxx:0106 MOV CX,1
xxxx:0109 MOV DX,80
xxxx:010C INT 13
xxxx:010E INT 20
xxxx:0110 {Leave this line blank and press the <Enter> key)
-G

The message, Program terminated normally, appears