Thinkpads Forum

Anyone know if it's possible to do a low-levle format on my x60T's hdd? If not, what zeo fill programs do you recommend?

Thanks.

-J

What do you want to accomplish?

"Real" Low-Level formatting isn't posssible on any harddrives (for over 20 years or something) aimed end users.

Sure there are low-level formatting tools offered by many manufacturers but the only thing they do is write zeros all over the disk. And that has nothing to do with "real" low-level formatting.

If you want to erase everything so that it's not possible to recover anything I'd suggest Darik's Boot and Nuke http://dban.sourceforge.net/ which is way better than any low-level formatting utility you can find for making sure that data is unrecoverable.
Although it will take longer.

If you decide to go for an low-lever utility make sure that it has support for your specific drive because if it doesn't it could mess things up bad.

But for any purpose I can think of Darik's Boot and Nuke will work - although as said might take a bit more time.

Drive Fitness Test
---------------
Restores Drive Fitness
Erase-boot-sector utility (Use option: Erase Boot Sector).
- Note: this utility overwrites customer data to allow repair of bad sectors.
Low-level format utility (Use option: Erase Disk).
- Note: this utility overwrites customer data to allow repair of bad sectors.

Hitachi Drive Fitness Test

Fujitsu Erase Utility
----------------
This procedure performs a pseudo-formatting to the drive. It erases all of your previous data and reinitializes it to "00" pattern. By performing this task, you will be able to erase the whole user area including your Master Boot Record, Partition Table, FAT (File Allocation Table), and all the files and data it refers to. Use this program if you want to be sure your drive is clean.

Fujitsu Erase Utility

Thanks guys! So the Fujitsu will work on any drive then??

Gomjabber, it appears this would be a problem:
Note: This program works only with any FUJITSU IDE/ATA hard disk drives Lenovo lists their hdd's as their own branding even on their buy parts/accessories pages.

GomJabbar wrote:

Drive Fitness Test
---------------
Restores Drive Fitness
Erase-boot-sector utility (Use option: Erase Boot Sector).
- Note: this utility overwrites customer data to allow repair of bad sectors.
Low-level format utility (Use option: Erase Disk).
- Note: this utility overwrites customer data to allow repair of bad sectors.

Hitachi Drive Fitness Test

Fujitsu Erase Utility
----------------
This procedure performs a pseudo-formatting to the drive. It erases all of your previous data and reinitializes it to "00" pattern. By performing this task, you will be able to erase the whole user area including your Master Boot Record, Partition Table, FAT (File Allocation Table), and all the files and data it refers to. Use this program if you want to be sure your drive is clean.

Fujitsu Erase Utility

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I believe it will work if it was manufactured by Fujitsu or Hitachi (use the appropriate solution). Look on the hard drive itself or in Windows Device Manager for the manufacturer.

Is there any software to low level format a Samsung HDD? I could not find it anywhere.

@Gomjabbar,
And thanks for the fujitsu low level format link.

I'm not sure if it's low level format, but it does have an "erase drive" option:

http://www.samsung.com/Products/HardDis ... /hutil.htm