[Wolves] Debian install gone horribly wrong :(

[Kevanf1]

On Fri, 11 Mar 2005 12:40:56 +0000, Jon Masters <jonathan at jonmasters.org> wrote:
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> scared at geneforensic.mine.nu wrote:
> 
> | Next stop - low level format as it seems the last step untried.....
> | Anybody care to stop me before I pull the trigger?
> 
> Generally that's a really really bad idea. But if you've got a Maxtor
> tool to do it and there's no hope otherwise, then do try it.
> 
> In general, low level formatting screws with internal disk sector
> remappings and almost inevitably will degrade performance.
> 
> Cheers,
> 
> Jon.
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I do believe you told me that too :-)))  To elaborate with what I
found out myself...   When the drive leaves the factory it has a
designated size.  The drive might well have started out as say an 80gb
drive.  But in testing some of the sectors were found to be faulty. 
The next applicable drive size would be perhaps a 40gb drive.  This
could well mean leaving 10 perfectly good sectors in reserve. 
Normally, the drive manufacturers own disk software will use these
spare sectors to repair a faulty drive.  Sort of bring them into play
if you like while at the same time marking the faulty ones as not to
be used.   A low level format can screw all this up.  But, if you have
gone through all the other options then you don't really have anything
to lose.

-- 
Take care.
Kevan Farmer

34 Hill Street
Cheslyn Hay
Staffordshire
WS6 7HR