Re: No start after re-install.

Tech-Archive recommends: Speed Up your PC by fixing your registry

From: Ted Zieglar (teddyz_at_notmail.com)
Date: 01/19/05 

Date: Tue, 18 Jan 2005 19:40:45 -0500

"No, you can *not* do this. A number of years ago, it was possible to
low-level format drives yourself, but on today's modern drives it's strictly
a factory procedure. Any attempt to do this yourself would result in ruining
the drive."

Boy, some of us woke up in a bad mood today!

"How Do I Low Level Format an ATA (IDE) Hard Drive?"
http://www.seagate.com/support/kb/disc/faq/ata_llfmt_what.html

Ted Zieglar

"Ken Blake" <kblake@this.is.an.invalid.domain> wrote in message
news:OvO1xra$EHA.2584@TK2MSFTNGP09.phx.gbl...
> In news:OzqIiMV$EHA.4072@TK2MSFTNGP10.phx.gbl,
> Ted Zieglar <teddyz@notmail.com> typed:
>
>>I buy my hard drives in stores. They are already low level formatted,
>
>
> Yes, but you're using these terms in an unusual highly personal way. The
> term "formatted," used by itself, never refers to low-level formatting.
>
>
>> and as such do not need to be reformatted before installing XP.
>
>
> All drives need to be partitioned and then each partition needs to be
> formatted (remember that plain "formatting" does not refer to low-level
> formatting) before use. What's apparently confusing you here is that a
> normal Windows XP clean installation both partitions and formats as part
> of that installation. In contrast, in MS-DOS and Windows 9X, you did these
> as separate steps before starting the operating system installation. And
> even with Windows XP, you still can do them as separate steps, and
> sometimes you *have* to do it that way; for example if you want to have a
> FAT32 partition larger than 32GB, Windows XP won't create it and your only
> choice is to first manually partition that way and then format it.
>
>
>> If I
>> was to purchase a second hand drive - something I personally do not
>> do - I would perform a low level format before installing the OS.
>
>
> No, you can *not* do this. A number of years ago, it was possible to
> low-level format drives yourself, but on today's modern drives it's
> strictly a factory procedure. Any attempt to do this yourself would result
> in ruining the drive.
>
> What you *can* do yourself is zero-fill the tracks of the drive.
> Unfortunately some people refer to this as low-level formatting, but it is
> not that at all.
>
> Returning to the subject of formatting (not low-level formatting) it's
> actually partitions, not drives, that have to be formatted; each partition
> that's created on the drive has to be formatted separately. Neither
> partitioning nor formatting is normally done before you buy the drive
> because the manufacturer doesn't know what operating system you're going
> to use it with, how many partitions you want, what size they should be,
> nor what file system they should use.
>
> --
> Ken Blake - Microsoft MVP Windows: Shell/User
> Please reply to the newsgroup
>
>
>
>> I didn't say that a new drive does not need to be partitioned.
>>
>> Ted Zieglar
>>
>> "Jeff Gaines" <whitedragon@newsgroup.nospam> wrote in message
>> news:xn0dxed4g32z4n002@news.microsoft.com...
>>> On 18/01/2005 Ted Zieglar wrote:
>>>
>>>> I'm sure exactly what you're saying, because a new hard drive
>>>> doesn't need to be formatted - it already is formatted.
>>>
>>>
>>> That's very misleading, where do you buy your new drives?
>>>
>>> I have never bought a HD that didn't need both partitioning and
>>> formatting before use.
>>>
>>> --
>>> Jeff Gaines
>>> Posted with XanaNews 1.17.1.2
>
>

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