View Full Version : When should I perform a low-level format?
Under what circumstances is it beneficial to do a low-level format? I've done it a few times just for kicks, but I'm not too sure when it is necessary. I know Windows NT tends to stick around even after a full format, so maybe that's when I should use it? I'm running Windows XP Pro though... Any ideas?
The only time its needed is when you want to be very cautious with your data. There is no performance gain that I can think of.
So unless I'm concerned with residual data not being covered over after a normal format, a low-level format will ensure that everything that used to be on the drive is indeed gone for good?
Pretty much. There are a few tools that MAY be able to get it off, but really you'd need to get ahold of somebody with high-tech and costly equipment to get it off.
Only time I'd say you "need" to zero the drive other than for security is possibly if a virus hits and takes over the boot sector. I wouldn't take any chances with it surving somehow and just kill everything off.
JigPu
I guess I'll just low-level format from now on. I mean, it's can't hurt right?
mtnbikerjerry
05-27-04, 10:39 PM
There are times that you could low level format or that you would want to.
1.) A serious virus hit your machine. (Not in a physical sense) :P
2.) If you have a ton of financial data, and do not want the NSA or some American intelligence agency or the IRS scavenging your thrown away HD for all your records for your Visa, Mastercard and Discover credit cards as well as all that money you lent to Bill Gates and did not report. haha just kidding there.
3.) Them bits get scrambled up some time even to the point if you did a regular reformat while installing a new operating system, that the install could not go through.
4.) wtf?
5.) Your HD manufacturer should provide a list of low level tools for your HD. Each HD has its own set and repair utilities as well. Check them out.
webfanatic
05-28-04, 07:49 AM
If you want to wipe your data completely so that it really cannot be restored by any means you should better use a tool that writes absolutely random data to the drive many times, for example DBAN (http://dban.sourceforge.net/). :thup:
MisterEd
05-28-04, 08:20 AM
Low-Level Formatting
IDE & SCSI HARD DRIVES
DRIVE TYPES & WHY LOW-LEVEL FORMAT
http://www.ameriwebs.net/groupworks/george/llf.htm
2.) If you have a ton of financial data, and do not want the NSA or some American intelligence agency or the IRS scavenging your thrown away HD for all your records for your Visa, Mastercard and Discover credit cards as well as all that money you lent to Bill Gates and did not report. haha just kidding there.
Hehe, in that case i would trust only my hammer and anvil :p
MisterEd
05-28-04, 07:29 PM
Hehe, in that case i would trust only my hammer and anvil :p
Not good enough. I would rather trust a furnace to melt that bad-boy down.
I used to work with classified hard drives. They used to destroy drives by physical means. Now they only trust melting them in a furnace.
shadowdr
05-28-04, 08:46 PM
Another great tool is Eraser 5.7 (http://www.heidi.ie/eraser/download.php) .It will erase a file or folder completely with different options for how many times it writes 0's over the information.Very usefully for getting rid of folders that remain after the program has already been uninstalled.It also installs itself with your right click options so you can just right click and thoroughly erase.It will write 0's almost as fast as your Atto score so it is pretty quick.If used wisely you might never have to do another low level again.
Disputant
05-29-04, 02:26 AM
The only time I have ever done low level formats is when M$ is causing bad sectors on the disk. Low Level usually fixes then for me, unless of course the bad sectors are actually physical damage, then I buy a new disk.
Hey, thanks for all the advice! Nice article by the way MisterEd. I guess there's not too much of a reason for me to low-level format. I don't have too much sensitive data on my drives and I don't plan on throwing any away yet. I think I'll just keep low-level formatting just to make me feel good, haha! Anyways, thanks a lot, I appreciate all the info! :D
Prisoner1138
05-31-04, 03:54 AM
Uhhh, since when does microsoft(that "m$" crap is so lame) cause bad sectors? Since ms-dos 2.0 I've never, ever had an ms product just cause bad sectors on a hard drive.
Disputant
05-31-04, 04:16 AM
No need to flame Prisoner, there is an explanation behind my logic.
Many of the "bad sectors" these days are due to data rather than physical damage. One of the ways this can happen is through irregular placement of data on the drive. Managing my data is my operating system's job, and I do use mostly Microsoft products for the work that I do. Perhaps I should have worded my thoughts differently, but it is late.
For bad sectors caused by data errors, I think the process is called defect mapping where bad sectors are replaced with good ones. I can't remember for sure, someone can correct me.
MisterEd
05-31-04, 04:43 AM
Hey, thanks for all the advice! Nice article by the way MisterEd. I guess there's not too much of a reason for me to low-level format. I don't have too much sensitive data on my drives and I don't plan on throwing any away yet. I think I'll just keep low-level formatting just to make me feel good, haha! Anyways, thanks a lot, I appreciate all the info! :D
Just a few hours ago I was forced to do a low-level format. For a second time I tried to do an install of Fedora Core 2 linux. It has a bug that can corrupt the partition tables of your hard drives. After messing up the partitions of my first twe drive a couple weeks ago I only tried it again because of posted workarounds that were supposed to fix this. No harm was done to my first drive this time but my second drives' partition table was trashed. I tried to recover with Norton's Disk Doctor but it only made matters worse. When it finished it said that it could not fix the problem and a low-level format was required. Nothing I tried made the drive usable. I finally pulled out Western Digital's Data Lifeguard for Windows and did a low-level format. That fixed the drive and allowed me to repartition and format it again.
Prisoner1138
05-31-04, 05:22 AM
No need to flame Prisoner, there is an explanation behind my logic.
Many of the "bad sectors" these days are due to data rather than physical damage. One of the ways this can happen is through irregular placement of data on the drive. Managing my data is my operating system's job, and I do use mostly Microsoft products for the work that I do. Perhaps I should have worded my thoughts differently, but it is late.
For bad sectors caused by data errors, I think the process is called defect mapping where bad sectors are replaced with good ones. I can't remember for sure, someone can correct me.
yes, managing data is the operating systems job. but it doesnt mean that the os is at fault if it happens. turning off your computer while it's writing to the hard drive can cause bad sectors(and i'm not talking about the drive spinning down causing the head to scratch the platters) and that definitely isn't the fault of the os. and even if it's bad data, that still isn't really a bad sector anyway, as it can be fixed. a bad sector is a permanently damaged portion of a drive platter that is mapped in a lowlevel format so it isnt used and cause data corruption.
MisterEd
05-31-04, 06:37 AM
yes, managing data is the operating systems job. but it doesnt mean that the os is at fault if it happens. turning off your computer while it's writing to the hard drive can cause bad sectors(and i'm not talking about the drive spinning down causing the head to scratch the platters) and that definitely isn't the fault of the os. and even if it's bad data, that still isn't really a bad sector anyway, as it can be fixed. a bad sector is a permanently damaged portion of a drive platter that is mapped in a lowlevel format so it isnt used and cause data corruption.
When one does get these bad sectors then it many time means that the drive is failing. If one is will to use this drive for awhile and live with this then doing a low-level format has an advantage. With the bad sectors seen by Fdisk, Format, and Scandisk these program will take it seems like forever to run. This is because of all the retries when the bad sectors are accessed. If one runs a low-level format program and puts any bad sectors in the "bad block table" then Fdisk, Format, and Scandisk will never see them again and run much more quickly.
Prisoner1138
05-31-04, 10:33 AM
If the "bad sectors" aren't physical, it physically has nothing to do with the hd, and doesn't mean your drive is failing. It means that something screwed up when writing to the hd. I'm well aware of what bad sectors actually are and said what a low level format does. So why are you quoting and replying to me?
newbienerd
06-01-04, 02:31 AM
LOL!!! you guys are funny! Dumb question WARNING! what is a low-level format?? is that just like doing a format with a boot disk after fdisk? can someone please give me a full detailed explanation of what exactly a low level format is. and if that is the case... is there a high level format??? and what is the definition of it??? thanks!
i love this forum!
MisterEd
06-01-04, 07:45 AM
LOL!!! you guys are funny! Dumb question WARNING! what is a low-level format?? is that just like doing a format with a boot disk after fdisk? can someone please give me a full detailed explanation of what exactly a low level format is. and if that is the case... is there a high level format??? and what is the definition of it??? thanks!
i love this forum!
Real Low-Level formating can only be done by hard drive manufacturers. The so called Low-Level software available for download even though not the same as this do some of the same functions. They write all zeros to the entire drive. This usually fixes partition tables when normal programs like FDISK cant' handle it. Also, there are some viruses that can only be removed this way.
Normal format programs we use in Windows and DOS can only be used after the drive has been partitioned by programs such as FDISK and Partition Magic.
MisterEd
06-01-04, 07:52 AM
If the "bad sectors" aren't physical, it physically has nothing to do with the hd, and doesn't mean your drive is failing. It means that something screwed up when writing to the hd. I'm well aware of what bad sectors actually are and said what a low level format does. So why are you quoting and replying to me?
I was only using your message as a reference and adding information and was not really replying to you at all but to the thread. If this offends you I will remove the quote. OK.
germanjulian
06-01-04, 10:08 AM
if you manage to bugger up your MFT table like me....
I usually use the "low-level format" utility embedded within my Adaptec SCSI card. I guess if I want to low-level format my IDE drives, I need to download software huh? That's part of the reason why my primary OS partition is on my SCSI drive. It makes it much easier to low-level format the drive that the OS is on.
MisterEd
06-01-04, 03:56 PM
I have never had to use a low level format until a couple days ago when Fedora Linux mucked up the partition table. After I low-level formated it with the Western Digital utilty I thought I was through with it. When I used the Windows XP Disk Management it asked me to initialize it. By mistake I chose dynamic instead of basic partion type. When I went to create the partition for it, it would not let me to choose the FAT32 type. Partition Magic would not let me do anything with it either. So, is was back to quick low-level format which only took a few minutes.
Interesting... My Adaptec Low-level format for my 73.4GB drive takes about an hour, haha!
MisterEd
06-01-04, 11:02 PM
Interesting... My Adaptec Low-level format for my 73.4GB drive takes about an hour, haha!
The Western Digital DLGDIAG diagnostic program has two options for Low-Level formatting:
1. QUICK ERASE - writes zeros to the first and last million of sectors
2. FULL ERASE - writes zeros to the entire drive and may take hours to complete depending on the drive size and system performance
The first time I used FULL ERASE which took a long time. I don't remeber how long it took but it could have been an hour. The second time I used QUICK ERASE which only took a few minutes.
The only time I have ever done low level formats is when M$ is causing bad sectors on the disk. Low Level usually fixes then for me, unless of course the bad sectors are actually physical damage, then I buy a new disk.
Yeah, I agree. I had many bad sectors on one IDE drive (though like 0,0002% of the total capacity of it) and low level format took them all way! Nothing else helped. Low level format made the hdd showing no bad sectors again.
Yeah, I agree. I had many bad sectors on one IDE drive (though like 0,0002% of the total capacity of it) and low level format took them all way! Nothing else helped. Low level format made the hdd showing no bad sectors again.
Or it could have just flagged the bad sectors so that they are never used again by software and thus don't register anymore.
does anyone have an up to date guide on how to low-level format, links would greatly be aprreciated. ty!
does anyone have an up to date guide on how to low-level format, links would greatly be aprreciated. ty!
Grab an "ultimate boot disk" iso. Theres a few tools on that cd that will let you do a low level format or zero fill the drive.
Dukeman
07-24-05, 07:53 PM
OK real quick update on Low-Level formatting.
At the Factory:
The drive maker takes totally blank media and with device called a servo writer the write the servo wedges onto the drive. The servo wedges are used by the hardware/firmware to track where the head is as it flies over the surface and keep it on the right track reading and writing the correct location. After the servo is written the actual sectors are physically mapped and any physically defective areas of the drive are skipped. This is Factory Formatting.
Real Low Level Formatting:
Back before integrated drive electronics (IDE) the host bus controller had a lot of control (funny how that works) of where data was written. ST506 drives could be low-level formatted along with SCSI drives where the actual drive sector mapping could be changed by the controller. With the advent of IDE only limited reformating using either BIOS controls or Debug commands could be done. Once Logical Block Addressing came along no more low-level formatting could be done to IDE/ATA drives. SCSI still retains the ability to be low-level formatted but it is an actual command in the drive and the firmware does the formatting, not the controller. SCSI drives generally require a low-level format after either a sector size change (from 512 to 520) or a capacity change. NOTE: Never power off a SCSI drive during a low-levl format or the corrupt format bit will be set and the drive will not come ready until it is cleared. Large SCSI drives can take a long time (hours) to low-level format.
So what is IDE/ATA Low-Level formatting today?
Well it is really called mid-level formatting and it is just where a pattern of data is written to the drive to clear previous data. DoD spec is to write 0's then 1's then 0's across the drive to erase all data. It is called mid level because it is between low-level and OS level formatting.
Hope this helps clear up any confusion.
murdok5
07-26-05, 11:31 AM
i low level format when i reinstall my OS. or adding a new non-OS disk to my system(s)
Xenocide
07-26-05, 11:39 AM
no need to ever.
you should never even full format in windows unless you are having problems. i use quick format for everything.
basically full format gets the drive ready to write to it. quick format just formats the first part.
when you quick format all the data is left on the drive you can't see it through, when you write to that sector its just written over, no extra noticable time.
full format gets it blank and ready to be written to...
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