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Dc36s <dc36s@aol.com> wrote:

> I have a PPC 8100/80 with an internal Hard Drive that was reinitialized.
> Norton repairs bad boot blocks repeatedly, and Apple's Disk First Aid and
> installer (System 8) utility both say that they fix the problem, but macine
> will not boot from new or old system folders. 
> 
> Question: Does reinitialization destroy a HD, and if so, is there any way
> that I can restore its usefulness.
> Any help via email is greatly appreciated. Thank You>
> dc36s@aol.com

(Re) initialization for practical purposes wipes a hard disk completely
and nothing that was on it is retrievable (for the ordinary user - GCHQ
Cheltenham can probably do it!). It should end up formated and ready for
use. You won't be able to boot from it until you reinstall the system
software.

-- 
Larry Stoter
17, Rocks Park Road, Uckfield, E. Sussex, TN22 2AT, UK
email: LPS@teknesis.demon.co.uk
Phone/Fax: +44 (0)1825 767967

Larry Stoter <LPS@teknesis.demon.co.uk> wrote:

[snip]

> (Re) initialization for practical purposes wipes a hard disk completely
> and nothing that was on it is retrievable (for the ordinary user - GCHQ
> Cheltenham can probably do it!).

Replace `probably' with `certainly' - recovering data from formatted
drives is something that's offered as a commercial service; I rather
suspect the spooks are at least as good at this as the commercial data
recovery firms.

btw, doesn't initialising a Mac HDD just destroy the directory structure
etc., leaving the actual data on the disc intact?  (Not that this
matters unless you're worried about security)

Rowland.

[snip]

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In article <19980114135701.IAA20176@ladder01.news.aol.com>,
dc36s@aol.com (Dc36s) wrote:

> I have a PPC 8100/80 with an internal Hard Drive that was reinitialized.
> Norton repairs bad boot blocks repeatedly, and Apple's Disk First Aid and
> installer (System 8) utility both say that they fix the problem, but macine
> will not boot from new or old system folders. 
> 
> Question: Does reinitialization destroy a HD,

No.  Either
a) The hard disk is faulty, or
b) You're using the wrong driver with it.

An example of (b) is having used a version of 'Drive Setup' which has
been patched to work on non-Apple disks.  If you've done this, you'll
probably remember doing it.

> and if so, is there any way
> that I can restore its usefulness.

Wipe the drive.  Install driver software.  Install system software
(again).  Do not copy anything from your old system folders.  Does
it work ?  If not, get it repaired or replaced.

> Any help via email is greatly appreciated. Thank You

If you don't read a group, don't post there.

Simon.
-- 
Simon Slavin -- Computer Contractor. | If I ran usenet, the timestamp for
   http://www.hearsay.demon.co.uk    | anything posted between 2am and 5am
 Check email address for UBE-guard.  | would *blink*. -- Nancy Lebovitz
My s/ware deletes unread >3 UBEs/day.| Junk email not welcome at this site.

Rebecca and Rowland <real-address-in-sig@flurbletigibbet.rhubarb.foobar>
wrote:

snips ...

> btw, doesn't initialising a Mac HDD just destroy the directory structure
> etc., leaving the actual data on the disc intact?  (Not that this
> matters unless you're worried about security)
> 
> Rowland.
> 
Don't think so - otherwise it would only take a few minutes at most. Try
reinitialising a 1Gb HD and it takes much longer. Disk is being
completely wiped:)


-- 
Larry Stoter
17, Rocks Park Road, Uckfield, E. Sussex, TN22 2AT, UK
email: LPS@teknesis.demon.co.uk
Phone/Fax: +44 (0)1825 767967

Larry Stoter <LPS@teknesis.demon.co.uk> wrote:

> Rebecca and Rowland <real-address-in-sig@flurbletigibbet.rhubarb.foobar>
> wrote:
> 
> snips ...
> 
> > btw, doesn't initialising a Mac HDD just destroy the directory structure
> > etc., leaving the actual data on the disc intact?  (Not that this
> > matters unless you're worried about security)
> > 
> > Rowland.
> > 
> Don't think so - otherwise it would only take a few minutes at most. Try
> reinitialising a 1Gb HD and it takes much longer. Disk is being
> completely wiped:)

Ah yes - there was me confusing `Initialise' (what HD SC Setup does) and
`Erase' (which is what the Finder does).  Initialise *does* erase the
data; erase doesn't.  And this is supposed to be an inuitive user
interface?

Rowland.

-- 
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Rebecca and Rowland <real-address-in-sig@flurbletigibbet.rhubarb.foobar>
wrote:

snips ..

> Ah yes - there was me confusing `Initialise' (what HD SC Setup does) and
> `Erase' (which is what the Finder does).  Initialise *does* erase the
> data; erase doesn't.  And this is supposed to be an inuitive user
> interface?
> 
> Rowland.

Doesn't 'erase' from the Finder really erase - it does with a floppy -
can't say I've tried it with a HD.

However, dragging files/folders to Trash/Wastebasket only removes the
entry from the directory.

-- 
Larry Stoter
17, Rocks Park Road, Uckfield, E. Sussex, TN22 2AT, UK
email: LPS@teknesis.demon.co.uk
Phone/Fax: +44 (0)1825 767967

Larry Stoter <LPS@teknesis.demon.co.uk> wrote:

> Rebecca and Rowland <real-address-in-sig@flurbletigibbet.rhubarb.foobar>
> wrote:
> 
> snips ..
> 
> > Ah yes - there was me confusing `Initialise' (what HD SC Setup does) and
> > `Erase' (which is what the Finder does).  Initialise *does* erase the
> > data; erase doesn't.  And this is supposed to be an inuitive user
> > interface?
> > 
> > Rowland.
> 
> Doesn't 'erase' from the Finder really erase - it does with a floppy -
> can't say I've tried it with a HD.

Well I never - it certainly *does* erase data from a floppy disc.  I
didn't know that - it seems the disc gets filled with F6s (1111 0110),
aside from the bits which are filled with 0s and the other bits that
hold useful information about the disc.  I still don't know about HDDs,
though (I've just tried erasing a floppy and looking at it with a disc
editor; I'm not so keen on trying the same game with a HD volume).

> However, dragging files/folders to Trash/Wastebasket only removes the
> entry from the directory.

Indeed; hence the use of Burn and its friends for to over-write a file
if you're worried about people recovering data you've deleted.

Rowland.

-- 
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Rebecca and Rowland <real-address-in-sig@flurbletigibbet.rhubarb.foobar>
wrote:

> Larry Stoter <LPS@teknesis.demon.co.uk> wrote:
> 
> > Rebecca and Rowland <real-address-in-sig@flurbletigibbet.rhubarb.foobar>
> > wrote:
> > 
> > snips ..
> > 
> > > Ah yes - there was me confusing `Initialise' (what HD SC Setup does) and
> > > `Erase' (which is what the Finder does).  Initialise *does* erase the
> > > data; erase doesn't.  And this is supposed to be an inuitive user
> > > interface?
> > > 
> > > Rowland.
> > 
> > Doesn't 'erase' from the Finder really erase - it does with a floppy -
> > can't say I've tried it with a HD.
> 
> Well I never - it certainly *does* erase data from a floppy disc.  I
> didn't know that - it seems the disc gets filled with F6s (1111 0110),
> aside from the bits which are filled with 0s and the other bits that
> hold useful information about the disc.  I still don't know about HDDs,
> though (I've just tried erasing a floppy and looking at it with a disc
> editor; I'm not so keen on trying the same game with a HD volume).

I've recently used `Erase' under System 6.0.8 to wipe the 20MB HD
connected to my Mac Plus.  It did the job in a handful of seconds, which
I assume means that it didn't fill the platters with a fixed pattern of
data.  Given the length of time HD SC Setup took to initialise that same
disc, I assume that it *does* wipe the data.

Rowland.

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Steve Firth <filter@firthcom.demon.co.uk> wrote:

> Rebecca and Rowland <real-address-in-sig@flurbletigibbet.rhubarb.foobar>
> wrote:
[snip]

> > Given the length of time HD SC Setup took to initialise that same
> > disc, I assume that it *does* wipe the data.
> 
> No it doesn't. The data can still be recovered after the disc has been
> initialised. What takes the time is writing the blocks on the disk. 

Can you explain exactly what this means?

>If
> you try using Wipe Infor to overwrite all the data on the disk, it takes
> even longer. HDT has an option to to a secure erase, performing multiple
> overwrites with random data, it takes hours.

Hmm.  Isn't that more a reflection of the inefficiency of the software?
Given that the SCSI-2 interface on my Performa 475 can shove data into
the 1GB ext HDD at 3.8MB/s (measured sustained data rate), you could
expect efficient software to write once over the entire disc in
something of the order of 5 minutes.

Rowland.

-- 
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Sorry - the spam got to me.          
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Steve Firth <filter@firthcom.demon.co.uk> wrote:

> Rebecca and Rowland <real-address-in-sig@flurbletigibbet.rhubarb.foobar>
> wrote:
> 
[snip good explanation]

Ta.

> > 
> > >If
> > > you try using Wipe Infor to overwrite all the data on the disk, it takes
> > > even longer. HDT has an option to to a secure erase, performing multiple
> > > overwrites with random data, it takes hours.
> > 
> > Hmm.  Isn't that more a reflection of the inefficiency of the software?
> > Given that the SCSI-2 interface on my Performa 475 can shove data into
> > the 1GB ext HDD at 3.8MB/s (measured sustained data rate), you could
> > expect efficient software to write once over the entire disc in
> > something of the order of 5 minutes.
> 
> Not really inefficiency as such, you quote the peak SDTR, try doing the
> same trick with a sequence of random reads and writes which makes
> allowance for real-world events like moving the heads. You will find
> that the rate is a lot slower than 3.8Mb/s. 


Yes, but formatting a disc doesn't use random disc access - it's a
sequential process, creating the blocks at one end of the disc and
working your way to the other end.  One would assume that you'd get
close to maximum efficiency.

>I checked the bench test
> results forthe drive on this Mac, a 6100/DOS and it gives 4.9Mb/s as the
> peak SDTR, but with 2K blocks the rate falls to under 450Kb/s.
> Formatting involves writing blocks which are 512 bytes, at which point
> it is hard to read the scale on the graph, but it would appear to be
> around 50-120 Kb/s.
> 
> HD Toolkit used to give the option of improving transfer rate by
> increasing block size, however this also vastly reduced the storage of
> the drive since the smallest amount of space used by a file is the block
> size. Hence with a 2Kb block size, even a file using 64 bytes will
> consume 2Kb of storage.

Given that Macs are limited to 2^16 blocks (unless you've got hfs+,
which very few people have - certainly not me), you use a block size
larger than 512 bytes normally anyway.  My smallest disc partition uses
2K blocks - at that block size, data transfer to my HD is still very
efficient.

Rowland.

-- 
Remove the animal for my email address:   rebecca@astrid.dog.u-net.com
Sorry - the spam got to me.          
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