Path: utzoo!utgpu!water!watmath!clyde!att!osu-cis!tut.cis.ohio-state.edu!mailrus!iuvax!bobmon
From: bobmon@iuvax.cs.indiana.edu (RAMontante)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.ibm.pc
Subject: Re: Hard disk problem
Summary: What a low-level format does
Message-ID: <12193@iuvax.cs.indiana.edu>
Date: 30 Aug 88 19:16:57 GMT
References: <20173@tut.cis.ohio-state.edu> <360@pigs.UUCP> <9971@eddie.MIT.EDU>
Reply-To: bobmon@iuvax.UUCP (RAMontante)
Organization: malkaryotic
Lines: 16

A low-level format will search for and avoid bad areas on the hard
disk.  The value of the manufacturer's list is that it was generated by
rigorous testing that may have caught defects the formatter would
miss.  It may also save some time, since the formatter needn't test
those areas.

For "plain vanilla" MFM hard disks, Zenith supplies a program called
PREP with MSDOS to do the low-level format.  I have an Adaptec RLL
controller, and it includes a formatting routine in its internal ROM
which is used by running DEBUG and starting the code at c800:ccc.

disclaimer:  this info pertains to my own system, and is based on one of
the poorer memories in the western hemisphere.  Your mileage may vary.
-- 
--    bob,mon			(bobmon@iuvax.cs.indiana.edu)
--    "Aristotle was not Belgian..."	- Wanda