metla_jpm@cc.helsinki.fi (JP M{kel{) (05/27/91)
In article <1991May22.173915.4052@news.larc.nasa.gov>, jcburt@ipsun.larc.nasa.gov (John Burton) writes: > Formatting a 40 meg disk should NOT take 38 hours regardless of the > software you're using...if it does, I'd begin to suspect a problem > with the disk or controller... > The 'problem' is that Spinrite II formats the hard disk WITHOUT erasing the data in it; That product is for maintaining the disk and changing the interleave, not for the initial formatting, which is, as you state, supposed to be MUCH faster. __________________________________________________________________________ This .sig intentionally left blank. __________________________________________________________________________
G22QC@CUNYVM.BITNET (05/29/91)
I used what they called depth 4 low-level format. It was extremely slow. Eddie Wu
lhuston@yale.citi.umich.edu (Larry Huston) (05/29/91)
The reason that spinrite is slow, is that spinrite is also doing some pattern testing, and the higher depth you use, the more thorough the pattern testing is. If you just want to low-level reformat the disk, you can turn the pattern testing off and it will be about as fast as a normal low-level format. All of this is explained in the manual. -Larry