conslt01@zeus.unomaha.edu (02/17/91)
I have a question for you people out there who are technical experts. I recently bought a new Packard-Bell 80386-25 system that came equipped with a 124 meg IDE hard drive. A small notice came with the system that said "THIS DISK HAS BEEN PREFORMATTED AT THE FACTORY..." talking about low and high level formats... and goes on to say... "DO NOT USE ANY FORMAT PROGRAMS OR DEBUG PROGRAMS ON THIS HARD DRIVE. IF THIS DRIVE NEEDS TO BE FORMATTED, IT..."must be sent back in to the factory where they will charge you an arm and a leg to do it, I'm sure. I would like to know what constitutes a debug program (Norton?) and if this is true? Are there drives out there that cannot be formatted by the user? I would like to know, because I have files on my hard drive I would like to put on a partitioned drive, but the program they gave me to partition the drive states that I cannot repartition the drive without reformatting the drive. I have DOS version 4.x Any and all help is greatly appreciated. Thank you in advance, John G. Schroeder Conslt01@zeus.unomaha.edu -- ************************************************************************ * Conslt01@Zeus.unomaha.edu * Main account Internet address Vax/Vms* * Shuttle@Alf.unomaha.edu (down)* Main account Internet address Ultrix * * Conslt01@Unoma1 * Main account Bitnet address Vax/Vms * * Shuttle@Unoma1 (down)* Main account Bitnet address Ultrix * *----------------------------------------------------------------------* * Computing & Data Communication * * University of Nebraska @ Omaha * * All comments stated are my own even if a gun IS pointed at my head...* * they do NOT reflect those of my ever GRACIOUS employers!! (cough!) * ************************************************************************ *BETWEEN TWO EVILS, I ALWAYS PICK THE ONE I NEVER TRIED BEFORE- * * -mae west * ************************************************************************
mlf@comet.cis.ufl.edu (Mike Fisher) (02/18/91)
|I have a question for you people out there who are technical experts. |I recently bought a new Packard-Bell 80386-25 system that came equipped |with a 124 meg IDE hard drive. A small notice came with the system |that said "THIS DISK HAS BEEN PREFORMATTED AT THE FACTORY..." |talking about low and high level formats... |and goes on to say... |"DO NOT USE ANY FORMAT PROGRAMS OR DEBUG PROGRAMS ON THIS HARD DRIVE. |IF THIS DRIVE NEEDS TO BE FORMATTED, IT..."must be sent back in to the |factory where they will charge you an arm and a leg to do it, I'm sure. If yours is like mine, the formating the warning label talks about is LOW-LEVEL formatting. High level formatting done with the format command works fine and is needed if you repartition the drive. WARNING: This is my opinion based on my experience. Your milage may vary. Read the manuals and make backups before doing anything drastic. -- ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- | Real life: There is no such thing... Mike Fisher | | | | University of Florida CIS Dept. mlf@cis.ufl.edu | -------------------------------------------------------------------------------
reichert@motcid.UUCP (Chuck KD9JQ) (02/20/91)
I have a Toshiba MK-234-FCH 104M IDE Drive which "can be low level formatted" per Toshiba. Their hardware design allows for low level format without screwing up the tables. Not all manufacturers have this capability! Generally, I wouldn't low level format unless I absolutely had to. The current 1 to 1 interleave gives 920 - 970kbs transfer rate. Using CHECKIT I get only 540kbs average (1989 AMI Bios timing Problem) but get 13.7Mbs rate with SMARTDRV.SYS installed. New 1990 AMI Bios I'm waiting for should increase base rate back to the 920-970kbs rate. Chuck Reichert KD9JQ