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From: wlsmith@valve.heart.rri.uwo.ca (Wayne L. Smith)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.ibm.pc.hardware,comp.sys.ibm.pc.misc,comp.os.msdos.apps
Subject: Re: Low Level HD Formatting Software
Message-ID: <3160@ria.ccs.uwo.ca>
Date: 28 May 91 15:05:42 GMT
References: <1991May28.021833.5303@cunixf.cc.columbia.edu> <1991May28.133950.14789@cbfsb.att.com>
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Organization: The John P. Robarts Research Institute, London, Ontario
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In article <1991May28.133950.14789@cbfsb.att.com> mbb@cbnewsb.cb.att.com (martin.brilliant) writes:
>> 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.
>
>Exactly.  I thought the reason for low-level formatting an aging drive
>was to realign the tracks with the misaligned heads, because that's
>easier and safer than opening up the drive to realign the heads with
>the tracks.  True? or fantasy?
>

I thought that the heads, which would creep, would lay down data which
would be skewed in relationship to the sector id data (on the same track as the
data).  Sector id data, which is only created during a low-level format, would
eventually become unreadable as the heads crept.  But as the heads crept, the
data that they read/wrote would always be directly underneath them.  A periodic
low-level format sounds like a good way to solve this problem, IF this
really happens...