Low level format????

[OnDborder]

What's the difference in this and just format?

I am having to do a low level format on my WD 60gig. Do I regular "format" after it's done?
I know it wipes the disk clean, what I wanted to do.

 

[David]

What's the difference in this and just format?

I am having to do a low level format on my WD 60gig. Do I regular "format" after it's done?
I know it wipes the disk clean, what I wanted to do.

A low level format writes every bit on the disk to 0. Zilch. Nothing. The disk is totallly clean.

A high level format puts a specific filesystem on the disk ie FAT32, ext2 etc.

You will need to do a normal format after the low level one.

 

[OnDborder]

Thanks David, for your help earlier..
Nothing seemed to work, so now I am experiencing what "low level" format is..
That hd hasn't been in use for awhile, I don't know why it wouldn't fdisk.
Never have done this before. It is very slow.