Low Level Format

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gregnash

2[H]4U
Joined
Jun 8, 2005
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I remember back in the day that you used to be able to get a program from most harddrive vendors that would allow you to low level format the drive (basically electrically reset the drive therefore erasing anything on the platers) I have not been able to find this for some years now and was wondering if there was still a way to do this? I have two matched 160gb sata drives that one is in the process of dying. Is there anything possible to do to save the drive?
 
You really don't want to low level format a modern drive. It's not necessary nor advisable. If a drive is dying, then low level formatting probably won't save it. How is it dying?
 
well, I doubt that a low level format would save a dying drive...

but it can help some problems. Two times I was not able to use my drive without getting errors until I low level formatted. chkdsk didn't help, I didn't know what was wrong with the drive but after low level formatting everything worked great.

hard drive manufacturer's diagnostic disk will be able to do it. You can download from their website and put it on a CD or floppy.
 
Low Level formating is often confused with writing zeros which is what you will find on HD manufacturers downloads sections.
 
Ok well this drive was causing alot of problems:
1. it was in a raid array so it would spontaneously say "removable storage device unexpectedly disconnected"
2. when we were able to get it stay connected and try to defrag the drive it would run through the entire process only to "disconnect" spontaneously again and look as though it had never been defraged

I hope that I can save this drive but if not it is no big deal. I just would like to have the extra 160gb of room for storage.
 
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