Levels of formatting

Okay, i have already surfed google and theres a lot of fuss....

Some says full format is high level format and some data is left while some says high level format is quick format...
Secondly i found after low level format its impossible to recover a data, i also found in one article that low level format is not erasing the data but also the reallocation of sectors which no software can do these days and its possible only in factories where drives are constructed. Thus for time being filling zeroes to all AVAILABLE sectors is low level format.
Also i found its possible to recover data after full format.

In between i have used 3 passes 4 passes format to clear HD disk. Also aware theres something we called Gutmann pass 35 passes.

Now overall sumarizing the content, whats difference between full format, low level format and different passes format. or low level format includes use of different passes randomly to wipe the data.


In between i request the moderators to kindly delete the post with same title present in lounge section of forum because of posting at wrong section. Could not post here earlier due to some server error particular to debates and discussion section.

Sorry if i am asking one of the dumbest question in the universe

Wrong forum, you need to post questions like this in Hardware

Not again, if i post in hardware, it will be a tripled post with same title and content. and even same author.
But in btw, i am still confused
formatting is a process, is it to be posted in hardware section then??

If yes, then again i need moderators help to just move the thread or i believe i am going against the rules of the forums.
And i would be dead then

But you would be justified - whether left justified or right justified would be up to the moderators though.

Hope so, it will be posted to right section and the one of the duplicates will be deleted.

In btw, none is giving the answer.

I am starting to thinking that none knows about this....

It depends on what you are formatting.

Technically a low-level format should mean one in which every bit of every sector is rewritten, but not all hardware supports that these days. That, and on one of these 1 TB drives it would be real slow ...

Since you should be able to write consecutively I'd say it shouldn't be that slow. Besides, chances are you know what part of the HDD you need to target.

I don't think sector is rewritten as much as reallocated as available to the new file system or partition. I believe the data is left intact until the space is needed and rewritten. A disk scrubbing tool would actually 'wipe' the physical data, rewriting the sector.

The problem is ... a lot of hard drives have no real "low level format". The old floppy drives, the PC did all the formatting. Hard drives usually come pre-formatted and have no provision for the computer to rewrite the physical formatting. If they did it wouldn't be practical anyway, as stated before.

Oh, thread moved, the board went down before I could move it earlier.

Originally posted by sgunhouse:

Technically a low-level format should mean one in which every bit of every sector is rewritten

Meaning if i use Dod 5220.22-M wiping utility, it actually a low level format....
Trying to repair bad sectors of my old hard disk.

The biggest problem is seagate seatools for DOS is not running properly. When i run utility i get a scratched screen, something you get when processor is not fitted properly or is loose from its slot.

In my experience once you move to repairing sectors you are just fighting the inevitable... Some drives have lasted a while longer others avalanched into complete failure. Older seagates are prone to the latter. Running a repair utility is one of the most stressful things you can do to a harddrive, if the system locks it's bad news for the drive. If you can localize the area and partition off you may keep the drive from failing so fast but in the case of faliures scattered all across the physical surface, the drive is likely damaging it's self during read/write functions. Cleaning the drive may help but nothing lasts forever.

I used the fdisk utility in dos a lot, I did have an old Windows 98 bootdisk (floppy) I used to keep useful repair and partitioning tools for dos on, back when I bothered with such things.

Originally posted by sgunhouse:

The problem is ... a lot of hard drives have no real "low level format". The old floppy drives, the PC did all the formatting. Hard drives usually come pre-formatted and have no provision for the computer to rewrite the physical formatting. If they did it wouldn't be practical anyway, as stated before.

Oh, thread moved, the board went down before I could move it earlier.

Well yeah, but there's plenty of utilities to write random 1s and 0s.

Originally posted by ensbb3:

In my experience once you move to repairing sectors you are just fighting the inevitable... Some drives have lasted a while longer others avalanched into complete failure. Older seagates are prone to the latter. Running a repair utility is one of the most stressful things you can do to a harddrive, if the system locks it's bad news for the drive. If you can localize the area and partition off you may keep the drive from failing so fast but in the case of faliures scattered all across the physical surface, the drive is likely damaging it's self during read/write functions. Cleaning the drive may help but nothing lasts forever.

I used the fdisk utility in dos a lot, I did have an old Windows 98 bootdisk (floppy) I used to keep useful repair and partitioning tools for dos on, back when I bothered with such things.

I've got a laptop HDD that was nearing the end of its life and even obtained a few broken sectors, but since I gave it a second life in my desktop (i.e. good airflow and stability) a year or two ago it's been doing great.

I can see that (may my poor last laptop r.i.p. ). Laptops often take hits get dropped or whatever while running coupled with, as you said, being packed in and running hot, surface damage is easier to obtain and not necessarily a worn out drive.

I've given failing drives extended lives as secondaries or kind of network holding areas before. Quarantine the bad areas and divide the disk so it's not always reading the whole drive has worked. I had an old seagate actually that started developing bad sectors. Given a not so great experience with the brand I pulled it from primary use instantly but the drive ran for years after until it was just too small for use... So yeah there's always hope.

Yeah, I'm not using it for anything important.

Originally posted by ensbb3:

In my experience once you move to repairing sectors you are just fighting the inevitable... Some drives have lasted a while longer others avalanched into complete failure. Older seagates are prone to the latter. Running a repair utility is one of the most stressful things you can do to a harddrive, if the system locks it's bad news for the drive. If you can localize the area and partition off you may keep the drive from failing so fast but in the case of faliures scattered all across the physical surface, the drive is likely damaging it's self during read/write functions. Cleaning the drive may help but nothing lasts forever.

yeah accepted, nothing so important in old system, infact i have my own new system but the old one is kept for may experimental purposes. So i was just trying out the HD, if it gets a new life. Worked with it around 12 years and now it makes lot of noise...

bearing is shot causing the disk to oscillate when it spins and scratching the surface... toss it.

Originally posted by ensbb3:

bearing is shot causing the disk to oscillate when it spins and scratching the surface... toss it.

means no way to reduce sound atleast for now??

Originally posted by utkarshbisht:

Originally posted by ensbb3:

bearing is shot causing the disk to oscillate when it spins and scratching the surface... toss it.

means no way to reduce sound atleast for now??

You can try and clean the bearing then apply a silicone based lubricant. Good luck is all I can tell ya.