low level format

anyone know the commands to perform a low level format? thanks

Hi,

As far as I know there is not such a command. To perform low level format you need special program like Disk Manager or must use Low Level Format option from BIOS Setup menu. But I strongly not recommended to do low level format, because new hard drives can be destroyed by such operation, or in better case low level format will have no effect on new hard drives. Use low level format as last resort only, when any other methods fail to succed. And try to visit your hard drive manufaturer web site and look for low level format utility specific to your type of drive. Using a propreatory utility give you more chances to succed.

Good luck, Igor M.

agree with the respected Igor M. almost all HD manufact only support lowlevel format in the factory, can not be done in a PC.

But...what kind of 'low level format' do you mean. repartition & reformat wipes disk clean and starts over. use fdisk & format. this is pretty low but not what is meant by lowlevel reformat.

I have a low level format program if you're sure that you want to do this...it will wipe your hard drive clean....let me know and i will e-mail it to you....ed

I believe that you can use the dos debug command to zero out the drive but I have never tried it before and I don't know what the switches/commands are that you would use.....there is also a free program called wdclear that is made by western digital to zero out thier drives and I have heard that it works on any IDE drive but there again I have never tried it. Maxtor has a free utility as well......just surf the net and you should be able to find them. Good luck.

I have performed a low-level format on two different HD, one from Maxtor and one from Western Digital. As long as you use the software provided from the manufacturer for this purpose, you won't have any problems. It's when you start using second party software, dos, or bios programs that you start to run into trouble.

The problem with low level reformat.

The damage to the HD often destroys factory mapping of platter defects. User low level REformat does not have the info. Also the drives are formatted with special Equipt. that has more precision than the final assembled drive. No manuf will support user low level REformat, as whatever caused drive failure & need for low level reformat renders the drive unreliable.

If you have a damaged drive & that is only choice for REuse, OK. But that drive should never be considered reliable.

There are a number of other valid technical points aginst user low level REformat that make it impractical for all normal intents & purposes.