how to format an ide hard disc in a usb enclosure

[Julian Stacey]

Hi,
Reference:
> From:		John Nielsen <lists at jnielsen.net> 
> Date:		Fri, 5 Sep 2008 09:56:53 -0400 
> Message-id:	<200809050956.53652.lists at jnielsen.net> 

John Nielsen wrote:
> On Friday 05 September 2008, Julian Stacey wrote:
> > "Alexander Sack" wrote:
> > > On Thu, Sep 4, 2008 at 4:59 PM, Julian Stacey <jhs at berklix.org> wrote:
> > > > I know, hence the background, yes I'm fully aware of all repercusions
> > > > thanks :-)
> > >
> > > Then if you understand IDE, understand what a low-level format really
> > > is (was), then you know that this is probably NOT what you want to do
> > > on your disk and understand it will NOT fix your problem.
> > >
> > > Other than some special vendor utility or BIOS utility, low-level
> > > format doesn't make sense for IDE disks.  There is no command for
> > > "format" and trying to reset the geometry like the old days doesn't
> > > even apply to modern disks.
> > >
> > > If you want to try a low-level format tool (for IDE that is probably
> > > just writing 0's or 1's to every sector on the disk and letting the
> > > hard disk automatically map bad blocks), I would just dd all zero's to
> > > it then try to create a filesystem.  If you still get media errors,
> > > your disk is foobar or about to be foobar, its cheap and you already
> > > stated you don't have any critical data on it so buy a new disk!  :D
> > >
> > > In fact Seagate offers a Windows too to do exactly this called
> > > ZeroFill:
> > >
> > > http://www.seagate.com/ww/v/index.jsp?vgnextoid=65a8783c970ce010VgnVCM1
> > >00000dd04090aRCRD&locale=en-GB
> > >
> > > Not trying to be too cheeky here, but I think what you are asking
> > > doesn't makes sense...at least to me....
> >
> > I do not run Windows, I run FreeBSD.
> > Repeat: How can I low level format this dik under FreeBSD ?
> 
> Alexander told you above. It's not a low-level format in the traditional 
> (circa early 1990's) sense, but will have the same practical result on 
> modern drives: dd all zero's to the disk.
> 
> Specifically, something like the following will do the trick. I'm using da0 
> since that's what you mentioned in your original e-mail Make sure it's 
> still the correct device..
> 	dd if=/dev/zero of=/dev/da0 bs=1m
> 
> The bs flag isn't mandatory but will let it run quite a bit faster than the 
> default 512 bytes.
> 
> If you then want to put a UFS2 filesystem on it, I'd suggest the following:
> 	fdisk -I /dev/da0
> 	bsdlabel -w /dev/da0
> 	newfs -L myscratchdisk /dev/da0s1a
> 
> If you ever expect to want to boot from the drive, add a -B flag to the 
> fdisk and bsdlabel commands. Supplying a label to newfs will make the 
> filesystem show up by name under /dev/ufs/myscratchdisk (or whatever you 
> call it) so you can mount it reliably even if the device node changes.
> 
> JN
> 

Aargh !  Please, no more superficial responses', if people don't
know: Don't answer !  Label & dd noise is Irrelevant.  Facts: I
want to _Format_ the hardware.  Whether others personaly dont
_reccomend_ that is irrelevant.

FreeBSD Did used to support issuing SCSI commands to low level
format a device, at least over scsi cable.  IDE devices do support
low level format, whether others approve or not, I've `low level
(*)' formatted both IDE & SCSI disks lots of times over decades,
using eg adapter cards, DOS progs etc, & yes FreeBSD too for scsi
(once was a command scsiformat I recall too).

Thanks to both for trying, but I still hope for a 1st usefull response.
Repeat: Can FreeBSD generate & pass scsi commands
over USB that a ISB to IDE enclosure will take & use to format.

(*) 'Low Level:' Even the term indicates wrong thinking.  'Format'
to people of my background automatically means low level.  Prepending
'low level' is just verbiage pandering to [ex] MS community too
ignorant to know format for them just meant (on a hard disc) creating
an FS, blather about `low level' allows others to distract to labels
& personal recomendations etc.

I want to _Format_ the disk !! Can FreeBSD do it ? How ?
Or must one take disk out of USB enclosure & attach a laptop-
to- 3.5"- IDE- size- adapter to format ?

Cheers,
Julian
-- 
Julian Stacey: BSDUnixLinux C Prog Admin SysEng Consult Munich www.berklix.com
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