Disk Repair Utility

[Bob]

I usually repartition/reformat my hard disks with Win2K Disk Manager
periodically to "clean them up", a holdover from the good old days of
SpinRight, etc.

I realize that modern HDs are capable of limited self repair but I
wonder how good that repair process is compared to a sector-by-sector
sweep and mark-bad procedure like SpinRight used to do.

For reasons I do not care about, Win 2K refuses to do this service
anymore so I need something to do it, preferrably in MS-DOS. I do not
want to use anything from Symantec.

Please recommend a reliable utility to sweep and repair defects on a
HD.

 

[Marten Kemp]

I usually repartition/reformat my hard disks with Win2K Disk Manager
periodically to "clean them up", a holdover from the good old days of
SpinRight, etc.

I realize that modern HDs are capable of limited self repair but I
wonder how good that repair process is compared to a sector-by-sector
sweep and mark-bad procedure like SpinRight used to do.

For reasons I do not care about, Win 2K refuses to do this service
anymore so I need something to do it, preferrably in MS-DOS. I do not
want to use anything from Symantec.

Please recommend a reliable utility to sweep and repair defects on a
HD.

Use powermax from Maxtor:
http://tinyurl.com/475x6

It'll do a low-level format and remap any bad sectors.
The exe will create a bootable floppy to run the program.
Works on drives from any manufacturer.

It detects all drives on the system even if they're not
configured in the BIOS, so be careful.

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[Bob]

Use powermax from Maxtor:
Works on drives from any manufacturer.

From the website:
"The PowerMax utility is designed to perform diagnostic read/write
verifications on Maxtor and Quantum hard drives."

I have WD drives.

Are you saying it will work properly on WD drives too?

 

[Bob]

Use powermax from Maxtor:
http://tinyurl.com/475x6

Dontcha just luv it when a major company can't find someone to do
their website correctly.

If you go to the link above, you find a download link at the top of
the page. Click on it and it goes to some blank page. Idiots.

I finally found powermax using Search.

 

[Marten Kemp]

From the website:
"The PowerMax utility is designed to perform diagnostic read/write
verifications on Maxtor and Quantum hard drives."

I have WD drives.

Are you saying it will work properly on WD drives too?

Yes. I haven't found a manufacturer on whose drives it
won't work[0]. Mind you, if PowerMax finds Something Bad
and you're in a position to get the drive exchanged under
warranty you should run the manufacturer's utility for
*its* error codes before calling.

The "recertification" part remaps the bad spots.

[0] I haven't tried it on really ancient IDE drives, nor
have I tried it on anything larger than 30g because I
don't own any.

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[kony]

From the website:
"The PowerMax utility is designed to perform diagnostic read/write
verifications on Maxtor and Quantum hard drives."

I have WD drives.

Are you saying it will work properly on WD drives too?

Then use the WD utility instead... comes with retail WD
drives or downloadable from their website.

 

[Bob]

Then use the WD utility instead... comes with retail WD
drives or downloadable from their website.

I have Data LifeGuard but it does not do a low level format.

I will look on the WD website to see if there is anything else. I
posted this inquiry to see if there were any 3rd party formatters
available.

 

[XModem]

I have Data LifeGuard but it does not do a low level format.

Not sure if you knew, but there's two distinct products: Data Lifeguard
Diagnostics, and Data Lifeguard Tools. Have you tried the Tools?

 

[CBFalconer]

I have Data LifeGuard but it does not do a low level format.

Nothing outside the factory does a real low-level format on modern
drives. The last machines requiring such operations were called
the XT, and were built around the 8088.

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[Bob]

Not sure if you knew, but there's two distinct products: Data Lifeguard
Diagnostics, and Data Lifeguard Tools. Have you tried the Tools?

I had earlier downloaded the Tools and they are useless for this
purpose. Now I have the Diags and they may be closer to what I want. I
will try them out in the morning after I have cloned the target disk.

Thanks for the heads up.

 

[Bob]

Nothing outside the factory does a real low-level format on modern
drives. The last machines requiring such operations were called
the XT, and were built around the 8088.

I recall the Phoenix Award BIOS having a purported low level formatter
for IDE drives in an older machine I once had. I have not looked at
this machine which also has the Phoenix BIOS.

Maybe I should just get SpinRite and be done with it.

 

[kony]

I recall the Phoenix Award BIOS having a purported low level formatter
for IDE drives in an older machine I once had. I have not looked at
this machine which also has the Phoenix BIOS.

There are three options:

It tries to do a low-level format and the drive ignores it.
It tries to do a low-level format and that ruins the drive.
It tries to write zeros to the drive and only calls it a
low-level format.

The 3rd option is the most likely and isn't useful but as a
generic way to get a virus off.

Maybe I should just get SpinRite and be done with it.

Spinrite is not needed. WD tools will do as much as
possible. If the drive is old enough or in poor enough
shape that a lot of bad sectors are showing up but not being
corrected automagically invisibly to the user, it's probably
time to replace the drive.

 

[don]

I didn't see the original posts to this thread but Low level formatting is
available in software pkgs like: Ontracks Disk Manager, Seagate's Seatools
(I think that is the name), Maxtors MaxBlast etc.

They do actually work, but if the drive is in a condition to need this
remedy it may only be a temporary fix.

 

[kony]

I didn't see the original posts to this thread but Low level formatting is
available in software pkgs like: Ontracks Disk Manager, Seagate's Seatools
(I think that is the name), Maxtors MaxBlast etc.

It's not actually a low-level format, more appropriately
would be called a zero-fill utility as that is all it does,
wipes the entire drive but no "formatting" is involved.

They do actually work, but if the drive is in a condition to need this
remedy it may only be a temporary fix.

Depends on what you mean by "work". If the problem with the
drive is a logical one, that it has been written to by
something that interferes with normal use by even
partitioning programs, yes it will help. If the drive has
mechanical or onboard logic problems, it'll only momentarily
try to prepare the drive until the problem resurfaces.
Essentially, such a utility should never be necessary in
normal uses of a drive and if there is not obvious cause
requiring use of one, it's likely just as prudent to give up
on the drive or return for replacement if still under
warranty.