I'm not sure if "low level format" really means
what it used to mean.  I think for modern IDE
drives one CAN get a special "low level format"
utility from the manufacturer for a particular drive
that actually performs a real low level format.  As
far as bad sector lists (why don't they put bad sector
list stickers on modern drives?  :) ) and spare sectors
and cylinders and heads and whatnot, I'm pretty
sure that all of that is now totally hidden from
the end user's prying eyes by the IDE hardware.

I suspect that modern "low level format" utilities
simply write NULLs (ASCII 0x00) to every sector
on the drive.  Hmmm.  I wonder if drives even
still *HAVE* "sectors"...  :)

I've encountered "strange problems" when installing
Linux, *BSD and M$-*.  Rather than do a so-called
"low level format" of the drive, I simply boot
FreeBSD's "fixit" system or Tom's rtbt floppy
and do something along the lines of


    DO NOT DO THIS    DO NOT DO THIS    DO THIS YOU DO NOT
    vvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvv

### dd bs=512 count=100 if=/dev/zero of=/dev/[sh]d[abcdef]

    ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
    DO NOT DO THIS    DO NOT DO THIS    DO THIS YOU DO NOT


This overwrites the stuff at the beginning of the
disk (MBR, partition table, yada yada yada) with
0x00 and this usually clears up the "strange problems."
And it's REALLY fast!


D

* On Thu, Mar 29, 2001 at 08:56:25PM -0700, keith@christianexchange.org wrote:
> I thought you could not do a low level format on an IDE because they were
> formatted at the factory.
> 
> Am I misinformed?
> 
> Thanks,
> Keith
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> ----- Original Message -----
> From: <proudhawk@uswestmail.net>
> To: <plug-discuss@lists.PLUG.phoenix.az.us>
> Sent: Thursday, March 29, 2001 8:46 PM
> Subject: Re: Common install problem
> 
> 
> > sounds like one of those problems I had.
> > I simply used an msdos low-level formatter, cleaned the drive
> > and re-installed... I think there is a setting in there that tells freeBSD
> to install a boot loader (which in this case, seems to have not been
> properly loaded).
> >
> > On Thu, 29 March 2001, "Trent Shipley" wrote:
> >
> > >
> > > I am trying to install a free *Nix OS on an ancient box that has a
> Pentium-I
> > > @ 125MHz, 32 Mbytes Ram and 10 GB IDE 33.
> > >
> > > All goes well until the reboot when I get the all-to-common little
> flashing
> > > cursor in the upper right hand corner of the screen.  I know this is a
> > > V-E-R-Y common install problem, but this is the first time I have had to
> > > cope with it.
> > >
> > > In the past the little box has successfully run Slackware 3.x, Debian
> > > Potato, and (briefly) Red Hat 6.2, even running X.  However attempts
> this
> > > week with:
> > >
> > > Walnut Creek FreeBSD 4.2,
> > > Slackware 7.1,
> > > and Redhat 6.2
> > >
> > > Just return the little un-responsive cursor.
> > >
> > >    (As this will be used at work, I have a license preference for
> FreeBSD.)
> > >
> > >
> > >
> > >
> > > Trent Shipley
> > >
> > > Work:
> > > (602) 522-7502
> > > mailto:tshipley@symbio-tech.com
> > > http://www.symbio-tech.com