what is low-level format?????....

[digant_goyal]

dear friends,
i want to know what is low-level format, what are advantages of doing it,
and how it can be done.....

[Ethan_Hunt]

LLF or Low level formatting a.k.a physical formatting is the initial formatting that a hard disk goes through by the Manufacturers before its release....it helps in creating the basic tracks and sectors on a hard disk....also it dictates where data is stored on the hard disk....unless any idea abt it then its strongly recommended that u dun perform such tasks....Btw here's a link to guide u to a LLF on a segate SCSI Hard drive http://www.seagate.com/support/kb/di...evel_scsi.html

and http://www.seagate.com/support/kb/di...lfmt_what.html (For ATA (IDE) drive)

Lastly http://www.pcguide.com/ref/hdd/geom/formatLow-c.html

[hikapil]

When i format My Hard Disk in Basement

[Charley]

its the initial format done by disk manufctrs........ to check whether its streamlind proprly

[enoonmai]

You can do a LLF with the debug command although its not recommended to do it a lot of times.

[tuxfan]

How long should a low level format take on a 40GB 5400 RPM disk?

[Charley]

Sorry dude mine is a 10 +8 GB hard drive.... I dont know abt that ......

[yehmeriidhain]

When i format My Hard Disk in Basement

mate tell me now wat is Logical formatting for U?? :roll:

[enoonmai]

Originally Posted by tuxfan

How long should a low level format take on a 40GB 5400 RPM disk?

Only logical partitioning takes times, which is proportional to the speed of the hard disk and its capacity. Using a LLF on a disk using the debug command is instantanous, because you will issuing direct instructions to the registers themselves.

This is NOT recommended unless you have a severe problem with not being able to use the format command or with any partitioning tool such as fdisk.

Be warned that some hard disk manufacturers consider the warranty to be void if you perform a LLF on their disks.

Boot the computer using an MSDOS startup disc, and then follow the instructions. The information in bold is what you need to enter, and the non-bold font outlines the prompts/system responses that will be displayed when the command is entered. The ones in parantheses denote keypresses.

A:\>debug <enter>
-F 200 L1000 0 <enter>
-A CS:100 <enter>
xxxx:0100 MOV AX,301 <enter>
xxxx:0103 MOV BX,200 <enter>
xxxx:0106 MOV CX,1 <enter>
xxxx:0109 MOV DX,80 <enter>

(Enter 80 for hd 0 or 81 for hd 1 )

xxxx:010C INT 13 <enter>
xxxx:010E INT 20 <enter>
xxxx:0110 <enter>
-g <enter>
Program terminated normally
-q<enter>
A:\>

Then restart the PC, use fdisk to partition the system and then format the disk logically. PLEASE NOTE that this should not be performed unless there's a severe problem.

[tuxfan]

Thanks for a detailed reply. But I have a DOS based software that can do the job for me in an instant.

[enoonmai]

Originally Posted by tuxfan

How long should a low level format take on a 40GB 5400 RPM disk?

LOL, then why this question?

[tuxfan]

To know whether that software actually does a low level format or just deletes the partition. I am not too knowledgeable in the field. So just taking opinion of people

So I don't want the procedure of doing it, but want to know the time it should ideally take.