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Thread ID: 47386 2004-07-24 13:20:00 HDD problem bk T (215) Press F1
Post ID Timestamp Content User
255096 2004-07-25 10:00:00 did you say there were two partitions to start with? agent_24 (4330)
255097 2004-07-25 11:08:00 > did you say there were two partitions to start with?

Yes. Originally, there were two partitions. During the Windows setup process, I deleted both the partitions but after that Windows couldn't see the 8 gig.
bk T (215)
255098 2004-07-25 11:22:00 What filesystem did you format it with ?

Is there another computer you can try it in?
Growly (6)
255099 2004-07-25 11:30:00 i would suspect two partions, becuase of bios limits as mentioned earlier, so maybe just re-partition and do it in two 10gig sections.

I once had an old 2 gig drive that was going mad with its partions - tried a program called ranish partion manager and it sorted it out fine.

its a rather old program it seems, but it might work
agent_24 (4330)
255100 2004-07-25 11:35:00 Did you ever do a full format? Growly (6)
255101 2004-07-25 11:36:00 good point agent_24 (4330)
255102 2004-07-26 01:26:00 > Did you ever do a full format?

The system doesn't detect (see) the full capacity of the HDD, does it really matter whether it's a full format or quick format? The system must be able to detect the actual capacity at the first place, right?

Cheers
bk T (215)
255103 2004-07-26 04:22:00 This old myth of low-level formatting has come up again. :_|

Modern drives are low-level formatted in the factory. That's it. The tracks are laid down on a servo platter, which doesn't store data: it just steers the head assembly. This is done with the drive open, and the heads are moved by a precision positioner.The surfaces are formatted, then checked thoroughly, and a table saved in an EEPROM which is used to bypass any bad sectors and tracks, using spare sectors and tracks.

A "low-level format" utility, usually provided to make traditionalists happy, might actually do nothing. At most it will rewrite the sector ID bytes and check the surface. Any bad sectors found in a "user" format are just marked as bad in OS tables. And it's usually an OS function, which can't be performed except on a partition known to the OS. You can't format a drive to make more space available to be partitioned unless it has been partitioned. ;-)

Most MFM drives needed low-level formatting when new, and occasionally during their life. This was because the track position was determined by the steps of a stepper motor, and gravity. If a drive was formatted in the horizontal position then mounted vertically, it was likely to be very unreliable because of the weight of the heads displaced them partly or completely off the tracks. So the formatting was done in the position intended. This was included as part of the IBM XT and AT BIOS code, and clones. It was often started from DEBUG, though I have had one BIOS which had it accessed from the screen setup menus. (I suspect that was a "dummy" formatting routine, though it did rewrite the headers, since it was in 1991 and IDE were standard by then).
Graham L (2)
255104 2004-07-26 21:19:00 Use Partition magic that will detect it kiwibeat (304)
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