At 05:57 PM 09/23/1999 , Mary Elise Zimlich wrote:
>I have a hard drive that somehow has errors in the FAT (evidently two
>copies), and other errors, too. Both scandisk and Norton Disk Doctor say
>the drive needs a low level format. This was the primary drive in this
>computer. I took it out and installed another hard drive, I put the drive
>with errors back in to salvage some files I had not backed up (mainly, my
>collection of blonde jokes, and yes, I'm a blonde), I have been able to get
>what I wanted off the drive now.
>My question is can someone recommend a utility, freeware would be
>exceptionally great, to do a low level format of this drive?
>The computer is a Dell 166 pentium. The hard drive is a western digital
>caviar 2.5 GB. I have 64 megs of RAM and run win 98. The drive is now the
>slave drive while I salvage my jokes.

If the only issue is the Fats on your hard drive have become corrupted, you
probably can solve your problem using FDISK to remove the partition and
then re-install a new partition on the drive, format it and move on...  it is
probably the partition that is corrupted.   We have a FAQ on our web site
for partitioning a hard drive:  http://nospin.com/pc/faqs0004.html

Now, with that said, each manufacturer of hard drives have utilities that will
perform a write function on the drive they call a "low level format," though
this is not, strictly speaking what is occurring.  It will return the drive to a clean
state, ready for a fresh partition with FDISK.   Find the manufacturer's name
and model number on the drive, then visit their web site for a utility.  We
maintain a list of drive manufacturers, (those still in business, as Fujitsu and
others are gone), on our web site in the Links section:
   http://nospin.com/pc/links.html

If you cannot find the utility on their web site, let us know and we will help
you find it.

I hope this helps...


                 Bob Wright
        The NOSPIN Group, Inc
http://nospin.com - http://nospin.org

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