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From: mort@hpihoah.cup.hp.com (Mark Mortarotti)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.ibm.pc.hardware
Subject: Re: Two IDE questions
Message-ID: <25880004@hpihoah.cup.hp.com>
Date: 10 May 91 23:42:48 GMT
References: <672g3mj@rpi.edu>
Organization: Hewlett Packard, Cupertino
Lines: 17

I hate to be the one to tell you this, but as I understand
things related to IDE disk drives, all IDE drives come pre -
formated from the factory. Using any low level format 
program on them including the DM program from Seagate will
mess up the drive. I don't understand what the issue is, or
why there could be a problem, just that the manufacture is
using a proprietary routine for the purpose. As for what it
does or does not do is unknown. The bottom line message I
have for you is: DON'T low level format your disk. 
If you have and are starting to see problems (bad sectors/tracks)
you should go back to the place of purchase, and exchange it
for another disk (assuming that they did not tell you not to
low level format your disk). If you noticed, the disk drive 
did not come with any initializing disk, right?

Gook luck
mark