Hi to all. I would like everyone, who knows about Low Level Formatting, to share their opinion about this. Low Level Format: formatting by LBA vs formatting by Drive Geometry. What do you think its better? Thanks to all. I'm just a shadow of my former self!

LBA for drives 1 gig and up. I've noticed some older bios' had a problem with some drives in that size range and would only be seen right as LBA. Also, you'd have to use LBA for 8 gig and up since C/H/S for those drives is irrelevent. Remember LLF isn't recommended for most IDE drives and should only be used as a last ditch effort. I think it's best to find an old Disk Manager from the particular HD manufacturer when doing the LLF.

Low Level Formatting is done in the factory by the manufacturer. Any attempt to do a Low Level Format on an IDE disk by the user will almost certainly render the disk useless. The Utilities that go by the name of a low level format are nothing of the sort. They simply zero out the drive to the state it was in when it left the factory. Choosing whether to format by LBA of Disk Geometry has nothing to do with Low level Formating. It is the low level format that sets the disk geometry. Change it at your peril. Stuart

Looks like homework.

I agree with all of the above.

The problem is the term 'low level format' doesn't have a universal definition. You have the one performed at the factory and you have a zero-fill utility. Somewhere between those two are the ones I was talking about. I wouldn't know what physically distinguishes one from the other but they are different. I recommended Disk Manager because it has both zero fill and LLF utilities. Obviously one must do something the other doesn't yet their LLF cannot be a factory LLF. The best one for smaller drives is MAXLLF. Maxtor made it available for their smaller IDE drives but I doubt you can find it on their site anymore. It did allow you to choose either LBA or C/H/S.

"The problem is the term 'low level format' doesn't have a universal definition. " Yup! I couldn't have conveyed that sentiment any better too. How that term is interpreted depends on who you are asking although the implication of the task as an end user procedure is where the misnomer lies. My belief is both terms are eventually going to become irrelevant to end users; many thanks to the increasing HDD storage size. I can't imagine anyone attempting to "fully" write zeroes to a 500GB hard disk - it would literally take many days to accomplish.