actually, I have 1 or 2 msdos based utils that will actually look at all that.
they will even generate a bad-sector list (and verfify that those are indeed bad).
On a 4 gig disk (ata66) expect the process to tkae roughly an hour... I had to clean off a screwed openBSD installation from one such drive (fdisk kept reporting invalid partitions, but wouldn't show anything AND wouldn't place anything new on the drive).

I can generally get about 3 or 4 % extra out of these drives... The newer ones though I think are already at the limits of their design and getting extra spare sectors, etc may be more difficult.

BTW, these ms-dos based programs also come with a fair testing fascility for testing motherboards, isa/pci bridges, cpu speed, memory, etc) not bad for a freeby give me by a few friends that were techs at some of the computer stores.

Hawke

On Thu, 29 March 2001, plug@arcticmail.com wrote:

> 
> 
> 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
> 
> 
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