CompuServe Messages

"Someone is pulling your leg." Au contraire, O Wedge breath." 🙂 On the 2090, the hddisk.device performs the required low lwvel format when given a 'FORMAT' packet by the Amigados format program. The I/O command, 'FORMAT', is sent with a length equal to the number of tracks on a cylinder, and the driver will issue a format to the controller, with the right starting sector and length of data. The advantage to doing things this way is that any partiton may be low level formatted. After the FORMAT command is executed, a read of the same length is sent, and the data verified. WHat this means is that you only really need to run the full Amigados format the first time you use the drive. After that, you could have a program that only writes the root block, bitmap blocks, and sector 0 in any partition. Of course if you clobber the drive with sufficient damage to the sector information, a complete Amigados format would be needed. A program that can do a minimal high level format will be along…. RSN. It will work on most drivers/drives/controllers after they have had a low level format. -larry