Re: Backup of MBF (was Hard disk problems)

[Peter Ross <petdr@cs.mu.OZ.AU>]

On 30-Jun-1999, [ Kaa ]@murphy.debian.org@hotmail.com <k_a_a_x@hotmail.com> wrote:
> >From: charles kaufman <chuck@grinder.acc.uri.edu>
> 
> >I'm trying to avoid repartitioning. I will if nothing else works.
> >But I don't know what 'low level format' means. I remember doing that
> >for DOS before there was IDE, but thought it wasn't needed anymore.
> >Thanks for all the information.
> >Chuck Kaufman
> >
> 
> Low-level format is *not* needed any more -- that is, as long as your hard 
> drive isn't fubared (as in fscked up beyond all recognition). It may not be 
> called a low-level format, either. I have a couple of Maxtor drives and 
> there is a Maxtor utility for them which will do the low-level format. In 
> the utility itself the operation is called a "Write test", but the docs 
> explain what it is. Basically, this will re-write the MBR and all the 
> sectors and "restore the drive to the condition in which it was shipped". I 
> had to use it once when I managed to screw up my MBR and it's backup as 
> well. Thankfully, this happened when I was installing a drive so there was 
> no data on it.
> 
Do you know a generic way to use the backup copy of the MBR, because I
once accidently hosed my MBR and had to reinstall.

Thanks,
Pete.