Re: Hard Drive Format

[daveh@ccwf.cc.utexas.edu (Dave Huang)]

In article <9302021601.AA12530@chasm.scar.utoronto.ca> 90taobri@chasm.scar.utoronto.ca (Brian Tao) writes:
>The following revelation escaped Howard Feiges's lips:
>> 
>> that is.... does there exist a utility for the appleIIgs that will low-level
>> format a hard drive while preserving the data at the same time...
>
>    I don't know of any such utility, but it doesn't seem too difficult
>to write.  Read a track, format the track, write the track, verify the
>track and repeat.  Seems pretty simple.

Hmm... I didn't know that there was a SpinRite for the Mac... the IBM
PC version that I used didn't let you low level format SCSI drives; it
just did a lot of read/write/verifies to check the disk surface. Also,
though I'm not positive, I don't think SCSI lets you low level format
a specific track, just the whole thing. Hmm.... don't Quantum drives
ignore a low level format request?
-- 
David Huang                                 |
Internet: daveh@ccwf.cc.utexas.edu          | "Microwaves: They're not just
UUCP: ...!ut-emx!ccwf.cc.utexas.edu!daveh   |     for cooking anymore."
America Online: DrWho29                     |