On 26 September 2017 at 21:33, Phil Blundell via cctalk <cctalk@classiccmp.org> wrote: > > Low-level formatting (which, at the time, was just called "formatting") > used to be quite a routine operation on ST-506 MFM and RLL hard disks. > They usually came completely blank from the factory and you had to > format them according to whatever sector layout and interleave your > particular controller wanted before they were usable. Once the drive > was formatted you then had to run a separate process to lay out an > actual filesystem.
All true, although by the time I entered the industry in 1988 or so, it was normal for drives to ship low-level formatted, at least. I remember that Netware came with a special tool called COMPSURF to do a "comprehensive surface analysis". There's still a passing mention of this here: https://support.novell.com/subscriptions/readmes/114.html -- Liam Proven • Profile: https://about.me/liamproven Email: lpro...@cix.co.uk • Google Mail/Talk/Plus: lpro...@gmail.com Twitter/Facebook/Flickr: lproven • Skype/LinkedIn/AIM/Yahoo: liamproven UK: +44 7939-087884 • ČR/WhatsApp/Telegram/Signal: +420 702 829 053
