Path: utzoo!utgpu!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!rutgers!usc!wuarchive!udel!princeton!pucc!Q4105
From: Q4105@pucc.Princeton.EDU (W.g. Price  q4105  Mathtech)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.ibm.ps2.hardware
Subject: How do I low-level format a PS/2 model 30 ?
Message-ID: <12004@pucc.Princeton.EDU>
Date: 5 Nov 90 16:40:01 GMT
Reply-To: Q4105@pucc.Princeton.EDU
Distribution: usa
Organization: Princeton University, NJ
Lines: 10
Disclaimer: Author bears full responsibility for contents of this article

I am supporting a plain PS/2 model 30 with a 20 meg hard drive that has
developed many bad sectors. (I don't know if this was sudden or gradual
but overlooked.)  I would like to try a low-level format before buying a
replacement, but can't figure out how.  The setup disk that came with it
does not seem to have the advanced diagnostics, even in response to ctrl-A.
Spinrite says that the drive is RLL encoded with sector translation, so it
won't reformat.  Norton's Calibrate and Ontrack's Disk Manager documentation
also say they won't work.  Is a reformat accessable in the BIOS via Debug
the way it is on the XT ?  is there anything appropriate available on SIMTEL ?
(Please e-mail any replies - my system flushes messages in less than a day.)