about hard disk

adi · March 18th, 2003

oh..you!!

"format" intructions will make some HDD broken.
it's that true??? tell me please...

Chinoz · March 18th, 2003

Wel..heard that it "hurts" your HD if you format too many times
broken? well AFAIK, only unscrewing your HD will make it broken

jegHegy · March 18th, 2003

eh? o_O i never heard anything like this. i really don't think it's true.

nyaa

Cylinder · March 18th, 2003

Maybe in the middle of a formating job, you have a catastrophic power surge, or some other incident that causes the read head to skip or what ever. I have never heard of formating to many time killing a drive. They are made for thousands of hours of use, and I don't think formatimg is that hard on them. There is always a chance it could go wrong though.

Galway no Sora · March 18th, 2003

No at all. Formatting just to prepare your HDD became ready to read and write datas and don't "hurts" the HDD itself. The prob is, that if you probabaly formatted your HDD 10x a day that will cause some troubles

Chinoz · March 19th, 2003

Well.....i use to format my 40gb maxtor 7200rpm like.....4-5x in 6mths.....and bad sectors came in less den a yr
Had to do a zero fill to clear things up

beckham_m7u · March 19th, 2003

Well, so as I heard. My lecturer once said that formatting hard drive means that you access some sectors of hard drive and clean it, access another sectors, and another. I didn't quite understand it too and he said that often to install and uninstall programs also will damage your hard drive. Guess we gotta need some hardware gurus here (Demigod? Lord Kane?

)

Now I have a case here:
My friend's hard drive now is damaged, there are bad sectors. Exactly 4,096 bytes. And he's very unlucky, the official guarantee date has passed for just about 2 weeks ago. So, what should he do? His is 40 GB Seagate. I heard that using some kind of Seagate Disc Wizard can throw away the bad sectors so it's capacities: 40 GB - 4,096 bytes. Is that true? Any suggestions what should he do? Thanks

**Demigod** · March 19th, 2003

Quote:

Originally posted by beckham_m7u
Well, so as I heard. My lecturer once said that formatting hard drive means that you access some sectors of hard drive and clean it, access another sectors, and another. I didn't quite understand it too and he said that often to install and uninstall programs also will damage your hard drive. Guess we gotta need some hardware gurus here (Demigod? Lord Kane? )

Well a hard disk consists of sectors and tracks. I guess it'd make sense to wipe it sector by sector in the case of formatting. I'm not really an expert in formatting though.:embl:

As for installing and uninstalling programs they can create undue stress on the drive. The same goes for defragging and benchmarking. Generally you want to avoid doing too many activities that involve strenuous hard drive usage (especially writing) as it'll wear out the drive faster.

Quote:

Originally posted by beckham_m7u
Now I have a case here:
My friend's hard drive now is damaged, there are bad sectors. Exactly 4,096 bytes. And he's very unlucky, the official guarantee date has passed for just about 2 weeks ago. So, what should he do? His is 40 GB Seagate. I heard that using some kind of Seagate Disc Wizard can throw away the bad sectors so it's capacities: 40 GB - 4,096 bytes. Is that true? Any suggestions what should he do? Thanks

Well if it's a seagate I would use their program to take care of the bad sector. You can also use the Windows scandisk utility to scan the disk and mark down bad sectors.

jegHegy · March 20th, 2003

there's a tool on seagate's site that can lowlevel format the disk, that should help. or if the bad sectors were caused by dust, your friend's out of luck, the dust will most likely damage other parts too. good luck.

nyaa

beckham_m7u · March 20th, 2003

Yeah, he just tried low level format at my house. But it stopped at 72%!! After the accident, he made some partition and re-format his hard drive and we haven't take care of that again. Hope it works. Thanks anyway.

PS: Thanks Demigod, can I ask questions again if I ever experience hardware trouble again? Resident hardware critic real suits you

March 18th, 2003	#1 (permalink)
adi Registered User Join Date: Oct 2002 Location: Surabaya - Indonesia Posts: 100	about hard disk oh..you!! "format" intructions will make some HDD broken. it's that true??? tell me please... __________________ The Fire Mystic

March 18th, 2003	#2 (permalink)
Chinoz ... Join Date: Jan 2003 Location: Desa Park, Key Ell, Malaysia Posts: 2,301	Wel..heard that it "hurts" your HD if you format too many times broken? well AFAIK, only unscrewing your HD will make it broken __________________ System specs P4 2.6c \| Abit AI7 \| Radeon 9800pro \| 1024mb kingston ddr400 \| 120gb seagate sata \| 40mb wd \| And all the minor bits and pieces 3dMark2001SE

March 18th, 2003	#4 (permalink)
Cylinder I Burnt The Toast! Join Date: Jan 2002 Location: BC, Canada Posts: 1,490	Maybe in the middle of a formating job, you have a catastrophic power surge, or some other incident that causes the read head to skip or what ever. I have never heard of formating to many time killing a drive. They are made for thousands of hours of use, and I don't think formatimg is that hard on them. There is always a chance it could go wrong though. __________________ :: A64 3200(@2.2GHz) :: MSI Neo2 Platinum :: 2048 HyperX 3500 :: eVGA 6800GT :: :: 2x WD Caviar SE16 SATAII 250GB :: Pioneer DVR 108 16x Dual Layer :: :: Audigy 2 ZS Patinum :: Digital 5.1 Sourround System :: :: Black Tt Tsunami Dream :: Samsung 955DF 19" CRT ::

March 18th, 2003	#5 (permalink)
Galway no Sora ~¤ PanZeR ¤~ idRO Thor Join Date: Mar 2003 Location: Valhalla, in Odin's throne Posts: 3,145	No at all. Formatting just to prepare your HDD became ready to read and write datas and don't "hurts" the HDD itself. The prob is, that if you probabaly formatted your HDD 10x a day that will cause some troubles __________________ Core 2 Duo 1.6 GHz «» 2048MB DDR2 RAM «» 256MB onboard Graphic Onboard Realtek High Definition Soundcard «» 160 + 40 GB SATA HDD Pioneer DVD±RW «» 15.4" Widescreen LCD «» Windows Vista Ultimate Sucks ha? Yeah, that's a laptop for sure.

March 19th, 2003	#6 (permalink)
Chinoz ... Join Date: Jan 2003 Location: Desa Park, Key Ell, Malaysia Posts: 2,301	Well.....i use to format my 40gb maxtor 7200rpm like.....4-5x in 6mths.....and bad sectors came in less den a yr Had to do a zero fill to clear things up __________________ System specs P4 2.6c \| Abit AI7 \| Radeon 9800pro \| 1024mb kingston ddr400 \| 120gb seagate sata \| 40mb wd \| And all the minor bits and pieces 3dMark2001SE

March 18th, 2003	#3 (permalink)
jegHegy Registered User Join Date: May 2001 Location: Hungary Posts: 2,184	eh? o_O i never heard anything like this. i really don't think it's true. nyaa

March 19th, 2003	#7 (permalink)
beckham_m7u Luv Hyolee Join Date: Apr 2001 Posts: 551	Well, so as I heard. My lecturer once said that formatting hard drive means that you access some sectors of hard drive and clean it, access another sectors, and another. I didn't quite understand it too and he said that often to install and uninstall programs also will damage your hard drive. Guess we gotta need some hardware gurus here (Demigod? Lord Kane? ) Now I have a case here: My friend's hard drive now is damaged, there are bad sectors. Exactly 4,096 bytes. And he's very unlucky, the official guarantee date has passed for just about 2 weeks ago. So, what should he do? His is 40 GB Seagate. I heard that using some kind of Seagate Disc Wizard can throw away the bad sectors so it's capacities: 40 GB - 4,096 bytes. Is that true? Any suggestions what should he do? Thanks __________________ "Hyolee is my dahling"

March 20th, 2003	#9 (permalink)
jegHegy Registered User Join Date: May 2001 Location: Hungary Posts: 2,184	there's a tool on seagate's site that can lowlevel format the disk, that should help. or if the bad sectors were caused by dust, your friend's out of luck, the dust will most likely damage other parts too. good luck. nyaa

March 20th, 2003	#10 (permalink)
beckham_m7u Luv Hyolee Join Date: Apr 2001 Posts: 551	Yeah, he just tried low level format at my house. But it stopped at 72%!! After the accident, he made some partition and re-format his hard drive and we haven't take care of that again. Hope it works. Thanks anyway. PS: Thanks Demigod, can I ask questions again if I ever experience hardware trouble again? Resident hardware critic real suits you __________________ "Hyolee is my dahling"

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