zero-write/harddrive test programs

[BinaryAssasin]

Are there any useful zero-write/drive testing softwares for harddrives below the 500MB mark? I have a couple of seagate 42MB harddrives and a Connor 420MB harddrive id like to test/zero-write if possible. Ive tried maxblast and seagate seatools for dos but neither of them correctly test and can't zero write. From what I understand both want harddrives at or above the 500MB mark.

 

[Stone]

Norton Disk Test (DT.EXE) is quite effective for floppies and hard drives. I use v4.5 Advanced Edition. Of course, it's a DOS program.

 

[Xacalite]

Linux "badblocks" command is pretty good, and available on most live-CD distributions, and AFAIR even on a single-floppy micro-distribution named "tomsrtbt".
But it may be problematic for pre-IDE HDDs, for them I recommend Checkit 3.0 - it can't zero-fill the disk, but for such disks it's better to do LLF anyway.

 

[Stone]

By zero-write I thought he meant... no writing to disk. If not, a format should suffice. Then there's always DBAN.

 

[Chuck(G)]

Zero-write? Do you mean "scrubbing" a drive? If so, there are scads of programs out there for that. I even wrote a couple.

 

[SomeGuy]

Are there any useful zero-write/drive testing softwares for harddrives below the 500MB mark? I have a couple of seagate 42MB harddrives and a Connor 420MB harddrive id like to test/zero-write if possible. Ive tried maxblast and seagate seatools for dos but neither of them correctly test and can't zero write. From what I understand both want harddrives at or above the 500MB mark.

For MFM and RLL (ST506/ST412 interface) hard drives either a BIOS formatter or SpeedStor to format/zero and Spinrite to thoroughly test.

For IDE drives (all up to 127GB) MAXLLF to zero and force bad sectors to remap, usually just Norton Disk Test afterwards. MAXLLF works on both early CHS and LBA28 drives. Despite the name it does not truly low level.

For SCSI drives, the Adaptec 2940 cards have a built in formatter/zeroing tool.

For larger modern drives, Linux tools like Linux DBAN or just good old "dd". There is also a tool called "HDDErase" that can trigger the built in "secure" wipe procedure found on later IDE/SATA drives.

 

[BinaryAssasin]

yeah, I don't like using "low level format" these days considering the end user can't do a low level format on newer drives. I l;ike to say "zero-write" (writing zeros to the entire drive). Found out theres about 5MB of bad sectors on the 420MB connor. Havn't checked my old 42MBs.

 

[Plasma]

I used to zero drives with an old version of WD Data Lifeguard. Version 2.5 IIRC.

 

[Stone]

yeah, I don't like using "low level format" these days considering the end user can't do a low level format on newer drives. I l;ike to say "zero-write" (writing zeros to the entire drive). Found out theres about 5MB of bad sectors on the 420MB connor. Havn't checked my old 42MBs.

FWIW, once an IDE drive starts showing bad sectors it's time to toss it. That's because it only 'shows' bad sectors after it's used up its supply of spare good sectors it replaces those bad ones with. So the actual number of bad sectors far exceeds that visible number and the drive is most likely failing fast.