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How to LLF an IDE HDD in MS-DOS 6.22

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PeterNC

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I acquired a Quantum Big Foot months ago. The one PC I have with BIOS LLF cannot handle this HDD. FDISK also fails.

Any suggestions on a MS-DOS LLF tool?

Thanks!
 
For IDE drives up to 127GB, MAXLLF is usually the best tool.

If MAXLLF does not recognize or wipe the drive, and a Big Foot should work fine, then likely the drive is dead. But double check the IDE controller and double check and re double check the cables.
 
Technically you are correct. MAXLLF does not do a LLF in the traditional sense, i.e., write out the tracks and indices, etc. That can only be done with highly specific, expensive equipment that the factory uses. It basically writes zeroes to all the sectors and forces the bad or weak sectors to be remapped to spare sectors.
 
Technically it just wipes the drive, but it zeros problematic MBRs and forces bad sectors to remap, so it is still a good way to test and prepare old drives. Since MAXLLF also bypasses DOS and BIOS it is a good way to test IDE hardware communications.
 
If the drive isn't recognized by your BIOS (i.e. doesn't respond), no software will save you. In my experience, this is often how the Bigfoot drives failed.
 
It is recognized and partitions show up in FDISK. I has a non DOS partition that I cannot remove with FDISK. Will try MAXLLF at some point this week. Got sidetracked.
 
I'm wondering if all those "LLF" programs for modern drives (and Quantum Bigfoot counts as "modern" here) can actually do anything more than eg. "cat /dev/zero > /dev/hda"...
 
MAXLLF is in progress. It slowed down so I guess it may be a bad HDD. Or at least have lots of bad sectors. :(

Update: time-out on 80H. Bad HDD. Trashed.
 
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