On 2018-04-23 22:33, Greg Freemyer wrote:
On Mon, Apr 23, 2018 at 4:18 PM, Carlos E. R. <> wrote:
Can't it be low level formatted again?
Not for the last 2 decades. The generation of drives before ATA allowed low-level formatting by the user. Now it is only allowed at the factory as far as I know.
Or maybe there is expensive hardware that would allow it,
I assume you mean the disk firmware can't do it. How does the manufacturer do it? Perhaps they format the platters before inserting them on the case? Or perhaps they assembly the disk without the circuit board, and use another board, or...? Yes, I remember my first hard disk. 32 megs. It had a step motor for the head, and had to be low level formatted by running code directly on the disk bios. I remember we had to load "debug" from msdos, load the program counter with a start value, and "run" that. I don't remember if it run directly or it presented a menu, but I do remember that we could choose the interleave. Default was 3, but I tested all values till 15 or thereabouts, and did measurements: my hard disk was much faster with a value of about 13. Much faster. -- Cheers / Saludos, Carlos E. R. (from 42.3 x86_64 "Malachite" at Telcontar)