> However if you are looking for a way to recover from a bad
> sector I think
> the only way is a low level format utility. I believe some
> companies (WD
> springs to mind) provide low level format utils which hide
> bad sectors from
> the user so that when you format the drive it appears undamaged.
> As far as I know HDD manufacturers use this technique when
> they don't get
> 100% good sectors in their manufacturing process. In fact in
> the "good old
> days" when processes weren't so good I heard that HDD's used
> to come with a
> list of sectors which were bad.
Do not do this unless you have talked to the drive manufacturer first!!
In the 'good old day' it was ok to do this as the drives geometry reported
was the actual physical geometry. But as technology has changed the user
rarely has to do this because the drive now translates the geomtries..
If you do a low level format before talking to the manufacturer and the
drive dies you are up shit creek without the preverbial paddle!
RikD
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