Date: Tue, 03 Aug 1999 07:16:57 -0700 From: Kent Stewart <kstewart@3-cities.com> To: Mark Ovens <markov@globalnet.co.uk> Cc: Greg Lehey <grog@lemis.com>, Bill Hussey <vfrboy@home.net>, questions@FreeBSD.ORG Subject: Re: Can't build kernel (was: Yo Quiero vnode_if.h) Message-ID: <37A6F9D9.8350DB07@3-cities.com> References: <37A68550.EE8B3BF@home.net> <19990803154935.U62948@freebie.lemis.com> <19990803100618.B267@marder-1>
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Mark Ovens wrote: > > On Tue, Aug 03, 1999 at 03:49:35PM +0930, Greg Lehey wrote: > > On Tuesday, 3 August 1999 at 1:59:45 -0400, Bill Hussey wrote: > > > > > and as I read it in the book, there is no way to format an IDE drive > > > except, as the book puts it, to format it with the BIOS. What does > > > this mean? > > > > When you boot up some machines, the BIOS setup screens include a hard > > disk format utility. You can use this to format (in Microsoft terms: > > low-level format) an IDE disk. I'm pretty sure that's not necessary. > > > > and totally pointless. AFAIK, (modern) IDE drives can only be > "low-level" formatted by the manufacturer. Using a BIOS format > utility will only succeed in trashing the servo info on the disk > thereby rendering the disk useless. Most (all?) IDE drives protect > themselves against these BIOS programs by simply sending back an > "OK" message, but without actually doing anything. Very true. I do not have an active system with a BIOS that will LLF an IDE drive. None of my Pentium's will but my last 486 system's BIOS would do a LLF. Drives have changed since then. However, you don't have to send the drive to the Manufacturer to get a low level format. They all have tools for THEIR drives. Some will even tell you when you need to obtain an RMA and return the drive for service. You only low level format when the drive has been handled very badly. This usually means a power hit in the process of writing to the disk. Your drive may have a defect, which will grow with continued use. You have to go to the web site for the manufacturer and look around for the appropriate tool. They usually talk about writing zero's into all of the sectors. Everyone knows a sector has data in it besides zeros but this is how the manufacturers describe their product to the public. These programs are written for DOS and you need a DOS boot floppy around. When you finish writing "zeroes", you have to high level format the drive again and that depends on the OS. I have a couple of Western Digital drives that really require a DOS MBR and I use a Windows 98 startup disk to do a "fdisk /mbr". Sometimes the hardest part of doing a LLF is finding the tool. I used to start looking for a manufacturer at Andy's HW list in Italy but it has disappeared and now I start at Andrew's web site http://home.chez.com/andrew/hardware.htm or Dick Perron's MFG Web index at http://www.gw.total-web.net/~dperr/links/mfgindex.htm. These people maintain manufacturer indexes to their current WWW addresses. The names used on the web may be obvious but sometimes that is only after you have found them for the first time :-). I have these url's in the bookmarks of the web browser's that I use. Maxtor has a series of tools to do IDE HD maintenance. For example, Maxtor has a program called MaxDiag, which does a number of things including LLF a Maxtor HD. They have a technote at http://www.maxtor.com/technology/technotes/tn-9811-002.html Western Digital has a set of tools called Data Lifeguard tools. There tools can be read about at http://www.wdc.com/service/ftp/drives.html#dlgtools IBM has a tool called Wipe that low level formats their drives. It can be read about at http://www.storage.ibm.com/techsup/hddtech/welcome.htm They also have a tool called Zap that will zap the start of a disk, which includes the MBR. This must have been in response to a couple of nasty viruses. The list goes on, and on ... Kent > > -- > FreeBSD - The Power To Serve http://www.freebsd.org > My Webpage http://www.users.globalnet.co.uk/~markov > _______________________________________________________________ > Mark Ovens, CNC Apps Engineer, Radan Computational Ltd. Bath UK > CAD/CAM solutions for Sheetmetal Working Industry > mailto:markov@globalnet.co.uk http://www.radan.com > > To Unsubscribe: send mail to majordomo@FreeBSD.org > with "unsubscribe freebsd-questions" in the body of the message -- Kent Stewart Richland, WA mailto:kstewart@3-cities.com http://www.3-cities.com/~kstewart/index.html To Unsubscribe: send mail to majordomo@FreeBSD.org with "unsubscribe freebsd-questions" in the body of the message
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