Advisable to warm up HDD before formatting?

[Sandee]

If I get a new hard drive then is it good practise to boot the PC and let
the drive spin for 30 minutes or so in order that it warms up before I
format it?

I have heard there is something called "thermal recalibration" in a HDD but
I wonder if it is far better to let the drive warm up to a stable
temperature.

If warming up the HDD is not being too fussy then how do I ensure the blank
drive keeps spinning because I believe that the drive will probably stop
spinning after a period of time. Is this spindown period set in the drive,
the BIOS or the operating system (I am using XP)?

BTW is there a program (like those for heating up cpus by putting a load on
them) which can keep the HDD spinning and also heats up a new HDD by moving
its actuator arm?

 

[JAD]

what's with all this cross posting lately?

There is no need to do anything to a HD before starting to prepare it
for formatting other than fdisk or maxblast or WD/IBM HD tools. after
the partitions are done format it.

 

[LVTravel]

As JAD said, it is not necessary to "warm up" the drive. The critical
information, the actual track positions, have already been placed on the
drive at the factory when they do a low level format of the drive.

The partition and high level format of the drive that you do in preparing it
for use has no effect on the low level format done at the factory. If it
did happen, the low level format would be the one affected by thermal
problems.

 

[Andrew Rossmann]

If I get a new hard drive then is it good practise to boot the PC and let
the drive spin for 30 minutes or so in order that it warms up before I
format it?

I have heard there is something called "thermal recalibration" in a HDD but
I wonder if it is far better to let the drive warm up to a stable
temperature.

If warming up the HDD is not being too fussy then how do I ensure the blank
drive keeps spinning because I believe that the drive will probably stop
spinning after a period of time. Is this spindown period set in the drive,
the BIOS or the operating system (I am using XP)?

BTW is there a program (like those for heating up cpus by putting a load on
them) which can keep the HDD spinning and also heats up a new HDD by moving
its actuator arm?

Unless you are formatting an ancient physically positioned drive, like
old sub-40M drives, heat shouldn't be an issue. Modern drives have
positioning information embedded with the data. It shouldn't be affected
by heat or position, except possibly under extreme conditions.

 

[Bruce Chambers]

If I get a new hard drive then is it good practise to boot the PC
and
let the drive spin for 30 minutes or so in order that it warms up
before I format it?

No, there's absolutely no need for "pre-heating" a hard drive.
And how would you make it spin, anyway? It'll have no contents, and
noting to do.

BTW is there a program (like those for heating up cpus by putting a
load on them) which can keep the HDD spinning and also heats up a
new
HDD by moving its actuator arm?

Never heard of one, and can't imagine there ever having been a
need for anyone to develop such a utility.

--

Bruce Chambers

Help us help you:



You can have peace. Or you can have freedom. Don't ever count on
having
both at once. - RAH

 

[JAD]

Never heard of one, and can't imagine there ever having been a

need for anyone to develop such a utility.

remember the old 'park' the head before you moved the machine dos
utility?

 

[John Bokma]

Never heard of one, and can't imagine there ever having been a

remember the old 'park' the head before you moved the machine dos
utility?

Parking was not limited to DOS, also other OSes supported a park.

 

[Bruce Chambers]

remember the old 'park' the head before you moved the machine dos
utility?

That I remember, but I still don't recall there ever being a need
to warm up a hard drive before using it.
--

Bruce Chambers

Help us help you:



You can have peace. Or you can have freedom. Don't ever count on
having
both at once. - RAH

 

[Bob Eager]

JAD wrote:

That I remember, but I still don't recall there ever being a need
to warm up a hard drive before using it.

Not warm up, but acclimatise.

I managed various large installations in the past, and if a new
Winchester-style drive (similar technology to now, but a lot bigger!)
came on site, engineers wouldn't fit it until it had been in the machine
room for 24 hours. Basically, to do with possible condensation.

Modern drives are unlikely to need this but the lore remains.

 

[CBFalconer]

That I remember, but I still don't recall there ever being a
need to warm up a hard drive before using it.

When you could still do a low level format, it was advisable.

 

[Ron Reaugh]

If I get a new hard drive then is it good practise to boot the PC and let
the drive spin for 30 minutes or so in order that it warms up before I
format it?

Yes and if it was brought into the room from a significantly different
temperature environment then let it sit in the PC a half hour before
powering it up and then wait the other half hour.

I have heard there is something called "thermal recalibration" in a HDD but
I wonder if it is far better to let the drive warm up to a stable
temperature.
Yes.

If warming up the HDD is not being too fussy then how do I ensure the blank
drive keeps spinning because I believe that the drive will probably stop
spinning after a period of time.

Hit the space bar occassionally or don't worry about it as being powered is
the important issue.

Is this spindown period set in the drive,
the BIOS or the operating system (I am using XP)?

Could be either BIOS or OS but not drive.

BTW is there a program (like those for heating up cpus by putting a load on
them) which can keep the HDD spinning and also heats up a new HDD by moving
its actuator arm?

Yes and you could get the drive quite hot. Don't do that.

Most modern HDs will allow one to get away with not doing the above most of
the time but on a fresh format over caution doesn't hurt.

 

[Ron Reaugh]

what's with all this cross posting lately?

There is no need to do anything to a HD before starting to prepare it
for formatting other than fdisk or maxblast or WD/IBM HD tools. after
the partitions are done format it.

Nope, waiting is not a bad idea.

 

[JAD]

you throw salt over your shoulder?

Nope, waiting is not a bad idea.

 

[VWWall]

You needed to park the head(s) every time the platters were spun down,
so they would not land on the "landing area" rather than on the data
tracks. Modern drives use a voice coil actuator which does this
automatically when power is removed.

When you could still do a low level format, it was advisable.

The tracks were selected by a stepper motor. If you low-level formatted
the drive, the sector information was re-written to the stepper motor's
track positions. The drive then ran best at the temperature at which it
was low-level formatted. Modern drives use "inbeded servo" tracks which
follow the data tracks with temperature changes.

Virg Wall

 

[Guest]

news:[email protected]...

If I get a new hard drive then is it good practise to boot the PC
and let the drive spin for 30 minutes or so in order that it warms
up before I format it?

Only if you're using a 1980s-vintage hard drive that positions its
heads with a stepper motor instead of a servo and voice coil, but even
with them this is necessary only if the drive:

a) has a track 0 calibration mechanism that isn't on the platters (old
Miniscribes where the stepper motor shaft had a flag that passed by an
optical sensor). The servo/voice coil system automatically
compensates for expension and contraction caused by changes in
temperature because the magnetic servo marks shift with the data
marks. Any thermal calibration is only for fine-tuning the system for
faster seeks.

b) is being run with 50% more data capacity than it's designed for
(MFM rated drive being used with RLL 2,7, especially Seagates). But I
believe such drives went out of production in the early 1990s, and
none were over 60M-80M in capacity (smaller than many flash drives).

c) is colder than the recommended lower temperature limit, in which
case it should first be allowed to warm up inside a sealed anti-static
container to prevent condensation.

 

[Ron Reaugh]

Only if you're using a 1980s-vintage hard drive that positions its

Not entirely true. You are forgetting the concept of temperature gradient
and warping and margins. Allowing the drive to relax temperature wise
before formatting is a smart move and that goes for today's drives with the
very high data densities.

 

[budgie]

As JAD said, it is not necessary to "warm up" the drive. The critical
information, the actual track positions, have already been placed on the
drive at the factory when they do a low level format of the drive.

The partition and high level format of the drive that you do in preparing it
for use has no effect on the low level format done at the factory. If it
did happen, the low level format would be the one affected by thermal
problems.

If the VC/servo mechanism tracks the ACTUAL track alignment as placed during the
LLF, then all reading/writing is correctly aligned always. Then why is there
any need for drives do this thermal recal?

 

[Sandee]

Not entirely true. You are forgetting the concept of
temperature gradient and warping and margins. Allowing the
drive to relax temperature wise before formatting is a smart
move and that goes for today's drives with the very high data
densities.

I am the OP and what you say was part of my thinking behind my question.

One poster said that the drives come preformatted (at a low level). However
although I am not really clear exactly what my formatting in NTFS or FAT32
does it seems to involve creating index areas (MFT or file allocation
tables), partition boot areas and perhaps creating sectors/clusters too.

So I was thinking that if the HDD's head to track alighnment was not optimal
(because the drive was still in a warm up phase and the thermal
recalibrations were not happening very frequently) then I might be writing
the the formatting data in a way which is slightly off-center of the track.

As I will probably only do this formatting once or twice in the life of a
partition then I figured that some extra care like warming up the drive
could be justified when I do it.

Seems from what a lot of people here say, except for you Ron, that I need
not bother. However I do not want to ignore what works in practice for many
people. OTOH maybe those people who get a very unlucky series of HDD
failures are doing something like formatting when at room temperature (not
quite 70 F or 20 C) rather than the disk working temp which can be well over
110 F or 40 F).

 

[Sandee]

If the VC/servo mechanism tracks the ACTUAL track alignment as
placed during the LLF, then all reading/writing is correctly
aligned always. Then why is there any need for drives do this
thermal recal?

Do all drives do a thermal reclaibration?

I am told the IBM drives used to be very noisy when doing it but on my
Seagates I have never heard any noise from them engaging in some periodic
activity like thermal recalibration.

 

[Ken]

If I get a new hard drive then is it good practise to boot
the PC and let the drive spin for 30 minutes or so in order
that it warms up before I format it?

Yes.