I am SO ****ED OFF!

[Quantum Clocker]

Ok, let me start from the beginning...
I got an old maxtor hd from a friend's dead dell (some model from 1998...). I bring it home, I low-level format it, and create a basic partition.
BUT...
THE DAMN THING WONT FORMAT!
I try to use a DOS boot disk to format it, but it either says that there is not enough memory (128mb?!) or that the drive is "Not ready"...
Am I crazy? Did I miss something? Did I totally screw up?
SOMEBODY HELP ME! :(

[pik4chu]

are you using a maxtor disk utility? might have to use that, Dell does some wierd stuff with thier drives as Ive found. So does Gateway

[Quantum Clocker]

I've used Maxtor's powermax utility to low-level format it.

[PYROMANIAC]

are you going to use it to put an os on or just to store files?

[Avatar28]

Have you considered that the drive may just be pooched? Also there's nothing funky on the drive that should keep you from just wiping the drive and reinstalling. Promise. I've done it on multiple occasions before.

[Quantum Clocker]

Ur right, maybe the drive has kicked the can...
By the way, I was planning on installing RedHat.

[pik4chu]

Originally posted by Avatar28
Have you considered that the drive may just be pooched? Also there's nothing funky on the drive that should keep you from just wiping the drive and reinstalling. Promise. I've done it on multiple occasions before.

as have I, on older systems Ive come across small, non-dos partition, sometimes it holds soom boot stuff or file tables and I cant get it to format in other computers.

Gateway was even worse though. One of those drive programs had been run on it for a software solution to get around the 8gig limit in computers. and it was totally unreadable by anything other than the original system. Which in the end couldnt read from it either.

[Cyrix_2k]

Wait! you mean you can low-level fromat IDE drive without screwing them up? I thought they lacked the precision do so.

Also, shouldn't you be able to low-level format from the bios?

[K1ll1nT1m3]

You can low level format any drive. Its best done from the manufactures utility. No BIOS I know of will let you low level format though.

edit: I would try installing RedHat. It should see all partitions on the drive and it has a better format command, if you ask me. Some times I have had a Linux partition get messed up and Windows or dos couldnt do anything to fix it. I had to use third party software to delete the partitions.

[pik4chu]

could toss in a knoppix cd and see if you can mount the drive and format it there. other alternative would be to make a partition magic bootdisk or something and try formatting it with that

[Cyrix_2k]

I thought only ESDI drives could truly low-level format. Of course these are from the 80's... Just remember, low-level formatting means the drive head is actually moving the sectors on disk. If you are simply deleting the information, that's just a normal format.

[pik4chu]

'low-level' format in todays terms is writting all 0's to the drive.

[Quantum Clocker]

Yea...It's dead...
I got an error when I ran a diagostic, and it came up on the maxtor website simply as a sign of a failing hard drive and should be replaced. Eugh...All that trouble for nothing!

[Cyrix_2k]

was it a 20gig diamondmax? Mine's going up and my Dad's friend's went up.

So "low-level format" doesn't mean what it used to? I'm used to working on 8088's. I had a whole bunch a few years ago.

[Enemy Down!]

what does writing zeros to the drive mean? and why is it so special than just a normal format of a drive? i mean, i can't see the justification in waiting hours to write zeros to a drive.

[jajmon]

Here is some info on LLF. What it meant in earlier technology and what is meant today.

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