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Re: [TCLUG:733] IOmega Zip Drives



I think there is a disconnect here.
To format a disk, there are actually two processes that occurs.

1. Low level format that actually lays down the tracks and sectors
   on the disk.
2. File system embedder - that sets up the disk to work with a given
   file system.

I think the confusion comes in with the fact that the DOS (and Win)
disk formatters performs both of these functions automatically.
Not so with Linux. The Linux (UNIX) mkfs performs #2, but not #1.
This is normally not a problem since all of the file systems use
the same basic Track/Sector layout. However, when I previously
formatted that zipdisk in NTFS (Win-NT 4.0) it must do something 
different with the actual disk layout because I am unable to 
perform a mkfs on the disk without performing an actual low level
format first -- and there lies the rub. There does not seem to be
a way to perform a LOW-LEVEL format on a zip-disk from Linux.
It's really not that big a deal - I just do it once in Windoze and
forget about it. I was just hoping someone else out there had already
figured this out and knew how to do it in Linux.


>
>> Hmmm. I haven't tried to fdisk the zip disk yet. But I don't think 
>> that's the problem. How do you do a low-level format on a zip disk?
>> Does the Linux fdisk perform a low level format -- I didn't think
>
>fdisk will change the partion type (ie from fat16 to linux native) that
>may be what you need to do. I don't think windows fdisk does that.
>


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