Computer Questions Not Worth Their Own Thread

[lndm]

That's what I meant by a low-level format, which I read overwrites everything with 0's.

This isn't really low level formatting. Low level formatting is an old thing for hard drives but is still done on floppies that use frequency modulation (FM) encoding. Here's how it goes.

The drive writes to the entire disk and rewrites it from scratch. This is the critical difference. It writes carrier patterns and track boundaries, not ones and zeroes.

Old drives had the facility to be aligned (with a screwdriver). Say, one drive had it's heads misaligned a little toward the centre of the disk and another a little to the outer of the disk (say, half of the track width). If you did a low level format on one drive and wrote some data, then put the floppy in the other drive it would read between the tracks and fail with that disk.

A floppy quick format instead skips the low level format and assumes it to be OK, then resets the file allocation table (a high level format).

With modern drives, the common alternative is the block check where data is written and read back to check that all is well. This is at the highest level.

The closest you can get to a low level format is resetting the partition table, and even this is not low level (well, lowish), and writing zeroes across the physical drive (beneath the partitions) is merely manually resetting the partition table.

 

[aimeeandbeatles]

I guess I got confused somewhere. I read to get rid of some really awful viruses that lodged into the boot sector, you needed to do a low-level format, which would replace it all with 0's. And also to make uncorrectable sectors usable again. Hmm...

Maybe I'm confusing overwriting the disk (e.g. DBAN) with the low-level format.

edit: Wikipedia

Disk Reinitialization

While it's impossible to perform an LLF on most modern hard drives (since the mid-1990s) outside the factory, the term "low-level format" is still being used (erroneously) for what should be called the reinitialization of a hard drive to its factory configuration (and even these terms may be misunderstood). Reinitialization should include identifying (and sparing out if possible) any sectors which cannot be written to and read back from the drive, correctly. The term has, however, been used by some to refer to only a portion of that process, in which every sector of the drive is written to; usually by writing a zero byte to every addressable location on the disk; sometimes called zero-filling.

The present ambiguity in the term "low-level format" seems to be due to both inconsistent documentation on web sites and the belief by many users that any process below a "high-level (file system) format" must be called a low-level format. Instead of correcting this mistaken idea (by clearly stating such a process cannot be performed on specific drives), various drive manufacturers have actually described reinitialization software as LLF utilities on their web sites. Since users generally have no way to determine the difference between a true LLF and reinitialization (they simply observe running the software results in a hard disk that must be partitioned and "high-level formatted"), both the misinformed user and mixed signals from various drive manufacturers have perpetuated this error. Note: Whatever possible misuse of such terms may exist (search hard drive manufacturers' web sites for all these terms), many sites do make such reinitialization utilities available (possibly as bootable floppy diskette or CD image files), to both overwrite every byte and check for damaged sectors on the hard disk.

 

[lndm]

It's not easy with the current state of information on the subject, as you noted with the wiki quote.

As HDD internal storage strategies are now more complex than simply peppering a disk with a grid of data so to speak, they can't just be low level formatted but this isn't such a bad thing in practice for a couple of reasons.

Firstly, due to precision mechanical devices it isn't so necessary. ie: voice coil actuated heads with positional feedback that can be placed right over the track, sensing this fact electronically. Old stepper motor actuated heads were at risk of becoming loose and vague after time, and tended to suffer from sagging when the drive was used at an angle, like vertically, requiring a low level format if you decided to run it that way after using it horizontally.

Secondly, modern hard drives can now just be treated as a data store, rather than a finely tuned machine that requires regular user maintenance and user knowledge.

Overwriting boot sectors (and the master boot record for the drive and all else on the drive) will deal with any virus (as long as it's not one of those ones that exploits drives to cause them physical damage). Reinstalling windows rewrites the boot records and high level formats the drives which is normally enough.

FWIW, fixing uncorrectable sectors is either sorted out at the OS level (very high level) by deciding to mark sectors as bad, or at the SMART level which is also a very high level internal procedure, and is invisible (that doesn't mean we can't see a report on it though).

 

[aimeeandbeatles]

I have a few programs that'll show the SMART reports. Most of them have trouble with it but I found two (one of them is HWiNFO32) that work. I think it's because my drive is a SCSI drive (the Windows hardware manager thingy said this.)

 

[Genocidicbunny]

I have a few programs that'll show the SMART reports. Most of them have trouble with it but I found two (one of them is HWiNFO32) that work. I think it's because my drive is a SCSI drive (the Windows hardware manager thingy said this.)

They're not. They're SATA. SCSI would mean you having a server motherboard which I doubt you do.

 

[aimeeandbeatles]

That's weird.

Spoiler :

 

[Genocidicbunny]

That's weird.

I know what you meant, I know what it looks like. They're SATA. it tends to happen if you use manufacturer chipset drivers.

 

[aimeeandbeatles]

Ah, I see. HWiNFO32 said it was SATA, i guess that was right.

 

[Ulyaoth]

Is 36C at load too low to believe for a Radeon 4830, everything I've seen about teh 4800 series Radeons says they get really warm so I'm worried there may be something wrong with a sensor.

 

[aimeeandbeatles]

My graphics card (NVIDIA) is about 50 C just sitting there, and that's normal according to googles. 36C is pretty low if you ask me.

 

[lndm]

Put your hand on the heatsink and tell us how long you can hold it there.

 

[Ulyaoth]

The heatsink is just barely warmer now at idle than the metal of the case which is slightly cool to the touch, gpuz says it's 24C. I guess it is that cool but that's strange. Maybe I should try a massive overclock then.

 

[Turner]

36°C is body temperature...he could probably hold his hand there for a long time.....

 

[Zelig]

Is 36C at load too low to believe for a Radeon 4830, everything I've seen about teh 4800 series Radeons says they get really warm so I'm worried there may be something wrong with a sensor.

Don't worry about it, temperature sensors in computers generally have a big margin of error either way.

If you take thermal imaging device to a computer, you see how inaccurate the sensors are, and that the hottest parts in the computer aren't where the sensors are anyway.

 

[aimeeandbeatles]

I read on another forum about protecting very sensitive files, to have a second hard drive with a foreign filesystem (e.g. Linux, isn't it EXT?) to make it harder for them to be stolen. How effective is it?

 

[Turner]

You want to protect a sensitive file? Put it on a flash drive and unplug it from your computer. Done. Protected. Ain't no one getting to it. At least over a network.

 

[Zelig]

I read on another forum about protecting very sensitive files, to have a second hard drive with a foreign filesystem (e.g. Linux, isn't it EXT?) to make it harder for them to be stolen. How effective is it?

It's superfluous, if sensitive files are properly encrypted, it's not going to matter what filesystem they're on.

What do you mean by stolen? If your hard drive gets physically stolen, and has sensitive information, you should assume that given enough time, the sensitive data will be recovered, regardless of what security measures are in place.

 

[lndm]

I read on another forum about protecting very sensitive files, to have a second hard drive with a foreign filesystem (e.g. Linux, isn't it EXT?) to make it harder for them to be stolen. How effective is it?

It's good, the logic is there but ultimately I agree with Turner

The main point would be that windows ignores non-ms filesystems making them inaccessible. However, if someone knew and installed an ext2fs viewer on your system...or more to the point you'd need one and they might happen to notice it there. Then theres the question of how you happen to know so much and have access to alternate operating systems and are aware of the concerns yet still choose to use windows on the net when you have a sensitive file on the system. That would be a mess to answer.

It's superfluous, if sensitive files are properly encrypted, it's not going to matter what filesystem they're on.

Let's let BitLocker take care of that, shall we?

 

[Genocidicbunny]

I read on another forum about protecting very sensitive files, to have a second hard drive with a foreign filesystem (e.g. Linux, isn't it EXT?) to make it harder for them to be stolen. How effective is it?

Truecrypt them into a hidden partition, and you're good to go.

 

[aimeeandbeatles]

well, I don't actually have any sensitive files (except maybe my horrible stories about Tom Petty which would probably traumatize the thieves!). I was just wondering.