🚀 go-pugleaf

In article <1991Jun20.092801.31571@kuhub.cc.ukans.edu>, 1h1a0m@kuhub.cc.ukans.edu writes:
|> In article <GINSBURG.91Jun19164100@rio.cme.nist.gov>, ginsburg@cme.nist.gov (Dylan Ginsburg) writes:
|> 
|> > Why should the drive be low level formatted every 6 months?
|> >
|> > Doug 
|> 
|> Perhaps to freshen up the track info which, unlike when writing a new file
|> to disk, is not written over old track info.  I suppose the read/write heads
|> become misaligned with time, just a like a car goes out of tune.  Doing a
|> low level format sets everything back to zero, as if you had bought a new HD.

No offense, but....  Bullshit!  If a drive/controller is working fine, there
should be no reason to reformat as often as 6 months.  The "magnetic creep"
effect is much slower than that, on the order of years.  The same goes for
the "drifting head" syndrome.  If you find that you have to format often, then
you have a bad drive or controller.  Formatting a drive only hides the
problem.  If you can hack the possibility that your drive will suddenly not
work sometime in the future, it's a band-aid.
  Also, PLEASE don't use a low-level format as a diagnostic.  It should be 
used when the hardware is known to be good.  You can mask serious problems
if you do.  It'll bite you someday.  I know.
  I've had to reformat my ST4038 twice in the last 5-7 years.  Once when I
got it, and again when a controller scribbled all over the drive.  Same for
my Maxtors.

Cheers - Kurt

-- 
Kurt Freiberger, wb5bbw	  kurt@cs.tamu.edu   409/847-8706
Dept. of Computer Science, Texas A&M University  DoD #264
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