CompuServe Messages

"I was told… that ST-501 drives do not need low level formatting…" Someone is pulling your leg. In fact I'm rather surprised you didn't fall down, they tugged on it so hard. All hard drives require low level information of some sort, and unless a platter surface is a dedicated read-only servo source, there is always the possibility of garbling the low level information. I have seen a half-dozen hard drives go down and need complete reformatting, on systems from Amigas to IBM clones. Personally I'd feel VERY uncomfortable about owning a hard drive if I had no way to perform a low level format. Basically it comes down to this: if your drive has a soft crash (as opposed to a hard (head) crash, which is fatal beyond repair), you try to recover the data through normal means. If that doesn't work, you attempt a normal format. If that doesn't work, you attempt a low-level format. If THAT doesn't work, you have serious problems. What exactly is this PREP you mentioned? Could that be a low level format? (I know nothing about the C/A drives, controller or software). Rick