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From: stone@cunixb.cc.columbia.edu (Glenn Stone)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.ibm.pc.hardware,comp.sys.ibm.pc.misc,comp.os.msdos.apps
Subject: Re: Low Level HD Formatting Software
Message-ID: <1991May28.021833.5303@cunixf.cc.columbia.edu>
Date: 28 May 91 02:18:33 GMT
References: <1991May22.172536.10283@EE.Surrey.Ac.UK> <1991May25.131542.11052@cunixf.cc.columbia.edu>
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Reply-To: stone@cunixb.cc.columbia.edu (Glenn Stone)
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L.Chung@ee.surrey.ac.uk (L N Chung) writes:
>>
>>Which hard disk formatting program can do a low level format on IDE drives?
>>Which one will hand SCSI and ESDI drives ?
>
>They say you can't low-level format IDE drives yourself.  The "Letters" 
>in the latest Byte magazine discusses why.
>

-Subject: Re: Low Level HD Formatting Software
-Newsgroups: comp.sys.ibm.pc.hardware,comp.sys.ibm.pc.misc,comp.os.msdos.apps
-In-Reply-To: <1991May25.131542.11052@cunixf.cc.columbia.edu>
-References: <1991May22.172536.10283@EE.Surrey.Ac.UK>
-Organization: NCSU Computing Center
-Cc: 
-
-Can you paraphrase why for us non-byte readers.
-
-rdkeys@ccvr1.cc.ncsu.edu
-

Roger Alford had an article on the IDE interface in the March issue
and answers a letter in the June issue.  His explanation is that the
only reasons to low-level format are to set the interleave factor and
map bad sectors.  IDE drives only run on a 1:1 interleave, and the bad
sectors can be marked in the factory.  While some people advise 
periodic low-level formatting to freshen up the sector markers, he 
claims that fading sector marks aren't really the cause of mis-reads;
misaligned heads are.

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  Glenn Stone                                      BITNET: stone@cunixc
  Columbia University            INTERNET: stone@cunixb.cc.columbia.edu
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