Ted said:
running Win 2000 pro sp 4, system is unstable, diagnostics
of the system indicate intermittent write/read problem on
SCSI hard disk.
How can I do a low level format to identify bad sectors
and lock them out, and also reformat the hard drive. I've
run chkdsk /r and /f several times and it runs and
completes but does not change the instability problem.
I can't find fdisk or format on the Win 2000 CD.
Adaptec SCSI host adapters contain their own BIOS. You can access it at boot
time when the host adapter begins its initialization by pressing Ctrl-A on
most every model Adapted card. (You might have to make some changes in the
system BIOS to get rid of the OEM splash screen that displays during the
POST phase. Hitting Esc on most systems also does the trick.)
Since your goal is to reformat to spare out bad sectors and/or tracks, don't
be mislead into thinking this will remove all traces of the old Win2K
installation. Even after reformatting from the host adapter's level, Win2K
will recognize the contents of the drive. To get rid of ALL traces of Win2K
you will have to mess up the drive a little bit. Use FDISK, create a DOS
partition, format (don't bother with formatting it as a system drive), and
use a DEBUG script to blow off the partition and boot sector information.
Search Google for "debug", "hard drive", "script" or other favorite keyword
combinations. There are lots of sites out there with the script.)
Once you get done scrubbing and cleaning, Win2K will think it's working with
a virgin drive.
All that being said, the instability problem might be more software related
than hardware related. Try running SFC /SCANNOW and let the utility fix up
corrupted files. (Have your Win2K CD available as it will want files from
that CD.) Check also for spyware - search Google for "Ad-Aware" and "SpyBot
Search & Destroy" for probably the most frequently recommended freeware
utilities out there. After you get done with all that, check the Device
Manager to ensure none of the devices are flagged and run MSINFO32 checking
the Components => Problem Devices folder.
