Date: Fri, 5 Sep 2008 09:56:53 -0400 From: John Nielsen <lists@jnielsen.net> To: freebsd-scsi@freebsd.org Cc: Julian Stacey <jhs@berklix.org> Subject: Re: how to format an ide hard disc in a usb enclosure Message-ID: <200809050956.53652.lists@jnielsen.net> In-Reply-To: <200809050808.m8588BFx006299@fire.js.berklix.net> References: <200809050808.m8588BFx006299@fire.js.berklix.net>
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On Friday 05 September 2008, Julian Stacey wrote: > "Alexander Sack" wrote: > > On Thu, Sep 4, 2008 at 4:59 PM, Julian Stacey <jhs@berklix.org> wrote: > > > I know, hence the background, yes I'm fully aware of all repercusions > > > thanks :-) > > > > Then if you understand IDE, understand what a low-level format really > > is (was), then you know that this is probably NOT what you want to do > > on your disk and understand it will NOT fix your problem. > > > > Other than some special vendor utility or BIOS utility, low-level > > format doesn't make sense for IDE disks. There is no command for > > "format" and trying to reset the geometry like the old days doesn't > > even apply to modern disks. > > > > If you want to try a low-level format tool (for IDE that is probably > > just writing 0's or 1's to every sector on the disk and letting the > > hard disk automatically map bad blocks), I would just dd all zero's to > > it then try to create a filesystem. If you still get media errors, > > your disk is foobar or about to be foobar, its cheap and you already > > stated you don't have any critical data on it so buy a new disk! :D > > > > In fact Seagate offers a Windows too to do exactly this called > > ZeroFill: > > > > http://www.seagate.com/ww/v/index.jsp?vgnextoid=65a8783c970ce010VgnVCM1 > >00000dd04090aRCRD&locale=en-GB > > > > Not trying to be too cheeky here, but I think what you are asking > > doesn't makes sense...at least to me.... > > I do not run Windows, I run FreeBSD. > Repeat: How can I low level format this dik under FreeBSD ? Alexander told you above. It's not a low-level format in the traditional (circa early 1990's) sense, but will have the same practical result on modern drives: dd all zero's to the disk. Specifically, something like the following will do the trick. I'm using da0 since that's what you mentioned in your original e-mail Make sure it's still the correct device.. dd if=/dev/zero of=/dev/da0 bs=1m The bs flag isn't mandatory but will let it run quite a bit faster than the default 512 bytes. If you then want to put a UFS2 filesystem on it, I'd suggest the following: fdisk -I /dev/da0 bsdlabel -w /dev/da0 newfs -L myscratchdisk /dev/da0s1a If you ever expect to want to boot from the drive, add a -B flag to the fdisk and bsdlabel commands. Supplying a label to newfs will make the filesystem show up by name under /dev/ufs/myscratchdisk (or whatever you call it) so you can mount it reliably even if the device node changes. JN
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