[Flaser]

iSave-1.5 GB: toasted

http://www.unityelectronics.com/product-product_id/1406
http://www.silicon10.com.tw/products/removable_storage/isave1_5g/isave1_5g.html
http://www.europ-computer.com/materiel-informatique-BESDD3918.html

I've been using this removable hard drive for quite a while now (1-2 years).
It had an annoying tendency to refrain from 'safe removal' regardless what programs I close down or whether I've interrupted all whatsoever data movement even virus scanning.

This resulted in much frustration as when as a last measure I had to yank it out unprotected and the russian roulette started....most of the time the drive was fine.
Recently (last 6 months) it started to need reformatting, but afterwards it worked fine.
However during the last roulette run it seems to have given up the ghost....

Windows can still access it and it even installs it as a USB device....however it can't mount the drive itself, and all software is mysteriously 'denied access' to the disk....I can't fomrat, scandisk or access it altogether....
I tried System Mechanic, see if it could solve the jumble....no such luck.
Any ideas?

[Fury]

Boot into linux livecd and try reformatting it.

[Flaser]

With forbidden Pinguin Necromancy I managed to bring it back to life, but it seems, the drive is in need of deep/low-level formatting, as it fails whenever it tries to write data to certain sectors (that's the only logical explanation I have for all these 'failed delayed write' errors).
No such luck, silicon10 offers no utility to do so.

I tried to do a thorough formating under XP, but it always failed at 18-20% in the process and I had to forcibly stop it. (As WinXP failed to even hang the process the normal way.)

Is there some hidden Pinguin Addemdum to the Necromicon that would allow me to cut out the rotting parts from my zombie?

[]C[rusader]

Hello.  My knowledge on this topic may be a bit out of date but... as far as i understand, there really isn't a user-available method to "low level format" a drive.  That sort of formatting is only done at the factory.  All that a user can generally do is use drive software to "zero-fill" the drive / mark bad sectors for avoidance while remapping to spare sectors.

When my Maxtor drive began failing, i had to get and use the PowerMax software to zero-fill the drive about six times before the bad sectors were all remapped.  i don't know if that software is compatible with your drive, or usable across USB, but if it is, it may solve your problem.  (The executable can be found at the Maxtor website.)  Or, perhaps the Ranish 'Partition Manager' may work, although i found it incomprehensible to use and thus wouldn't be able to help you with it.

[vyper]

Most manufacturers provide boot-utils that allow for low level formats, its just a matter of warranty inavlidation and such...

[]C[rusader]

Hmm.

Excerpt from:
http://www.ariolic.com/activesmart/low-level-format.html

Important drive information (servo, sector layout, and defect management, etc.) is stored in the low-level format at the factory. This information is designed to last the life of the drive and therefore it is not possible to low level the drive outside the factory. Although some drive manufactures and BIOS provided so-called "low level format utilities", they actually perform a write-read verify of the drive’s user data sectors, and do not actually perform a low-level format.


Excerpt from:
http://www.seagate.com/support/kb/disc/faq/ata_llfmt_what.html

Q: What does "low level formatting" an ATA (IDE) drive mean?
A: Actually the term "low level" is a bit of a misnomer. The low level process first used years ago in MFM hard drives bears little resemblance to what we now call a "low level format" for today's ATA (IDE) drives. The only safe method of initializing all the data on a Seagate device is the Zero Fill option in DiscWizard Starter Edition.

Q: Why would I want to Zero Fill my drive?
A: The most common reasons to Zero Fill an ATA (IDE) hard drive are:
   1. The drive has contracted a virus that cannot be removed without destroying the boot sector.
   2. You are changing from one operating system to another and wish to remove everything from the drive.


Excerpt from:
http://www.undercoverdesign.com/dosghost/dos/lowlevel.htm

... there is no longer any such thing as what we have always known as a "Low Level Format ".

Present use of the term "Low Level Format" means using the manufacturer's program to write zeros to all bytes of the user data areas.  Some of those programs can identify new bad sectors and mark them out of the "user area" to make the drive look 'clean'.

As of about five years ago, the drive 'intelligence' had the ability to mark out and replace with a 'spare' up to two sectors on any given track.  Beyond two sectors, the entire track was marked out as bad.

[Flaser]

I already knew that.

However the firmware stores not only data on the intricacies of the hardware, but it also contains the list of useable sectors on the disk.
Nowadays manufacturers can't make perfect drives that are 100% useable, therefore once a drive is assembled it is tested for several hourse, and a list is made of its perfect parts; which list is then written to the firmware.

Since my drive has faulty sectors now, I need a utility to update that data....but my manufacturer provides none, and is generally really poor at customer support.

Windows/general formatting/partitioning tools can't handle it.