how to format an ide hard disc in a usb enclosure

[Alexander Sack]

On Fri, Sep 5, 2008 at 10:48 AM, Julian Stacey <jhs at berklix.org> wrote:
> 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).

Its not superficial, IDE does not support the *format* command.  Check
the ATA spec:

http://www.real-world-systems.com/docs/e07163r2-Comments_on_ATA8-ACS_revision_4a.pdf.gz

(or T13.org AT Group etc.)

THERE IS NO FORMAT COMMAND.  Check the spec, there is nothing
*superficial* in what we are saying to you.

Using camcontrol to send SCSI CDBs to an IDE disk is not going to work
(it speaks ATA not SCSI).  This is what we are trying to tell you.
This isn't a BSD issue, this isn't an OS issue, this isn't a USB issue
(go ahead ask, you will get the same answer), this is a hard disk
issue in terms of what IDE supports.  The old days of low-level format
are now buried with the manufacturer and not available to the
OS/system software.

Low-level format for IDE is only achieved via a special vendor utility
that can low-level format it and reset the partition geometry.  No
modern drive from a modern manufacturer is going to make that utility
freely available (and it doesn't speak IDE either its probably at the
firmware level of the drive, i.e. this would be a BIOS utility).

Whether you use umass, atausb, or some magical driver you write, there
is no command to send to this drive to "low-level format" it.

Technically speaking if the USB enclosure was made by the hard disk
manufacturer and could talk to the drive at its firmware level then I
suppose you could send a SCSI CDB via USB umass which would get
magically translated/converted to do the *right* vendor specific
thing....you see how far-fetched this is?

We are trying to save you some time and energy on an endeavor that
makes no TECHNICAL sense!  :D

Thanks!

-aps