Path: utzoo!utgpu!watmath!uunet!lll-winken!pacbell!ctnews!starfish!cdold
From: cdold@starfish.Convergent.COM (Clarence Dold)
Newsgroups: unix-pc.general
Subject: Re: Formatting 3b1 hard drives.
Keywords: Which format do I use?  What if I mess up?
Message-ID: <902@starfish.Convergent.COM>
Date: 23 Dec 88 00:16:08 GMT
References: <1048@banzai.UUCP>
Organization: Convergent Technologies, San Jose, CA
Lines: 24


> For those unixpc guru's out there, here are some hard drive questions:
...
> 2)    If a drive has been formatted incorrectly, the bad block table
>   typically overflows during a surface test.  How do you then empty the
>   bad block table?  Reformatting the disk (again) does not empty it.
...
>   my bad block table has 119 entries, and I have not been able to
...
In the .desc file, there is normally a line 
badblocktable	1
If this is changed to 
badblocktable	1	empty
your bad blcok table will be emptied, and the values later in the .desc
file (if any) will be the new contents.
This will potentially trash data in those sectors that are really bad.

If badblocktable	1, it will only hold 127(?) bad spot references.
If you have more, iv should complain.  I don't know why 119 is the number
where you're stuck, but that is awfully close to the limit.

-- 
Clarence A Dold - cdold@starfish.Convergent.COM         (408) 434-2083
                ...pyramid!ctnews!professo!dold         MailStop 18-011
                P.O.Box 6685, San Jose, CA 95150-6685