how to format an ide hard disc in a usb enclosure

[Julian Stacey]

Hi,
Reference:
> From:		"Alexander Sack" <pisymbol at gmail.com> 
> Date:		Thu, 4 Sep 2008 16:51:14 -0400 
> Message-id:	<3c0b01820809041351lfedc31bla7ba0e3142c3fa85 at mail.gmail.com> 

"Alexander Sack" wrote:
> On Wed, Sep 3, 2008 at 6:33 PM, Julian Stacey <jhs at berklix.org> wrote:
> > Hi freebsd-scsi@,
> > How does one reformat an IDE disc in a USB enclosure appearing on
> > 7.0-Release via devd as /dev/ da0 da0s1 da0s1a da0s1c pass1 ?
> >
> > su
> > camcontrol devlist
> >  <MATSHITA UJDA730 DVD/CDRW 1.00>   at scbus2 target 0 lun 0 (pass0,cd0)
> >  <USB 2.0 Storage Device 0100>      at scbus3 target 0 lun 0 (pass1,da0)
> > camcontrol format da0
> >  You are about to REMOVE ALL DATA from the following device:
> >  camcontrol: scsiformat: error sending inquiry
> > camcontrol format 3:0:0
> >  You are about to REMOVE ALL DATA from the following device:
> >  camcontrol: scsiformat: error sending inquiry
> >
> > Should I be using something from ports/ ? eg
> >
> > cd /usr/ports/sysutils/smartmontools ...
> > smartctl -i -T verypermissive  /dev/da0
> > Device: USB 2.0  Storage Device   Version: 0100
> >>> Terminate command early due to bad response to IEC mode page
> > A mandatory SMART command failed: exiting. To continue, add one or more '-T permissive' options.
> >
> > cd /usr/ports/sysutils/sformat ... sformat -auto 0 0 3
> > ...
> > Enter number of heads -1 (1 - 255)/<cr>:
> >        ... too many questions I dont know answer to,
> >        I just want to reformat whole device.
> >
> > Background
> > Yes, perhaps as the disc is throwing errors, it might be dieing,
> > &/or bad disc sector list might be full/ filling, but that doesn't
> > worry me: I had to power cycle it rapidly while travelling, might
> > have been the reason, &/or maybe USB hub didnt deliver enough power
> > then (despite doubler cable, thus 1.0A not 0.5A), but theres' nothing
> > vital on that disk, it's just a scratch space for experiments, so
> > I'd like to reformat.
> 
> Julian are you trying low-level format the drive

Yes

> (something I don't
> recommend)

I know, hence the background, yes I'm fully aware of all repercusions thanks :-)

> or just write a new filesystem (a much better approach)?  I

Nope I Really want to low level formt.

> would look at mkfs/bsdlabel commands to remake the filesystem so you
> can mount it again.  Actually you can probably run sysinstall and use
> the disk creation options to do the dirty work as well.

Yup, thanks good tip for other times, I do indeed use sysinstall some times,
when I'm feeling lazy :-)

This time I Really want to low level format though.

Cheers,
Julian
-- 
Julian Stacey: BSDUnixLinux C Prog Admin SysEng Consult Munich www.berklix.com
  Mail plain ASCII text.  HTML & Base64 text are spam. www.asciiribbon.org