Low-Level format of ST-225
Todd Wilke
ST-225 hard drive and Western Digital controller (WD1002).
The drive was beginning to have a lot of seek-errors,
so I ran a low-level format and now the drive is botched.
The formatter flagged over 1000 bad sectors and I cannot
create a DOS partition (disk read-error).
The drive itself is fine, it formatted (with minimal bad
tracks) when mounted in another system (AT-class), so the
problem seems to be between the low-level formatter (which
is Epson's, not from WD) and the controller.
Is the phone call to WD for documentation and formatting
software all that I need? More? Less?
Todd Wilke wi...@cb.ecn.purdue.edu
Dept. Chemical Engineering
Purdue University
opt...@kuhub.cc.ukans.edu
According to your description of the problem, the controller is
most likly to have problem. You can try to use a known good
controller to test your drive again. There are also a number of
hard disk utility packages, that support low-level format functions,
in the market. (one of which, we are using a lot, is the Disk Manager
by Ontrack Computer Systems Inc.) I don't have their phone number
on hand, but if you like to know, I can dig it out.
Qiwu Liu
Univ. of KS
ber...@clio.las.uiuc.edu
Check to be sure you're using a step rate within drive specifications.
If the drive works properly on another controller and machine, that's
a likely cause oi your problems.