On 08/04/2009 10:13 PM, Peter Langfelder wrote: > On Tue, Aug 4, 2009 at 6:58 PM, Markus Kesaromous<remotestar@xxxxxxxx> wrote: >> I canvassed the web looking for a linux util that will >> low-level format a hard drive, and found noting but >> dos and windows tools. >> Is there a low-level HD formatter for linux? >> >> Markus K. >> > > How low is low? mkfs will build a file system of a specified type, > i.e. format a partition with a given file system. It is a command-line > utility and so low level in my book, but maybe not in yours. Peter, Historically, a low-level format refers to laying down the sectors and tracks on the disk. mkfs is a high level formatter, building a file system on top of the formatted tracks and sectors. Markus, Since pretty much the inception of IDE disk drives, all disks are low-level formatted at the factory, and low level formatting is not really a user function anymore, since the formatting of the drive is probably known to the microcode on the drive and any attempt to format it to some other format may "break" the drive. Most drive have the ability to detect "bad" sectors and automatically re-map them to unused sectors on the drive. When the supply of unused sectors is exhausted, the drive "dies" (ie, the bad sectors become uncorrectable errors and those sectors are no longer usable). Bad sectors are usually assumed to be faulty media that cannot be "reformatted" to become good again. It is not clear to me whether or not the firmware of modern disk drives actually tries to reformat bad sectors before remapping them to unused sectors. So, you either deal with the shrinking size of your disk, or you recover what you can from it, then throw it away and install a good one. What is it that you *think* a low-level formatting of the drive does? > HTH > > Peter -- Kevin J. Cummings kjchome@xxxxxxx cummings@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx cummings@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx Registered Linux User #1232 (http://counter.li.org) -- fedora-list mailing list fedora-list@xxxxxxxxxx To unsubscribe: https://www.redhat.com/mailman/listinfo/fedora-list Guidelines: http://fedoraproject.org/wiki/Communicate/MailingListGuidelines
