Low Level Format Samsung Spinpoint F3 HD103SJ

[Bender]

Hello.

I received my new HDD yesterday and wanted to clone my old HDD to my new one. I tried using some Paragon software but it failed, but I still got some data on my new HDD so I tried to do a Low Level Format using the "HDD Low Level Format Tool".

I got tons of errors, saying "error occurred at offset ..." , about 20 errors a second.

The errors stopped after about 30 minutes and I decided to let the software do its job and just waited about 2 hrs. The software said that the LLF was successful and that I had to create a partition.

I checked and my old partitions were still there so I guess the LLF failed. Then I deleted the partitions manually and cloned my old hard drive with "Arcronis True Image 11" , this time successful.

I'm now running my system with my new Spinpoint F3, and its working flawlessly.


My Question is now, did I did something terribly wrong? Could this Low Level Format with that much errors caused some damage to my new HDD? Or is my new HDD now OK and I dont have to worry about it anymore?

I checked my HDD with "HD Tune" and it seems that everything is OK. But I dont know much about HDD's.

Any help appreciated.

I hope my english is okay, im german but im trying my best.

[Vulcan]

Could this Low Level Format with that much errors caused some damage to my new HDD?

No.

Or is my new HDD now OK and I dont have to worry about it anymore?

Probably, yes.

What version of Windows were you using, when running the Low Level Format tool? Were you logged-in as Administrator (or equivalent)?

I hope my english is okay

Yes, very clear

[Bender]

Or is my new HDD now OK and I dont have to worry about it anymore?

Probably, yes.

What version of Windows were you using, when running the Low Level Format tool? Were you logged-in as Administrator (or equivalent)?

I was using Windows 7 Ultimate and I was logged in as Administrator.

[Vulcan]

What version of Windows were you using, when running the Low Level Format tool? Were you logged-in as Administrator (or equivalent)?

I was using Windows 7 Ultimate and I was logged in as Administrator.

Thanks - that is what I expected. Win 7 is not supported by the program author at the moment.

Read this page for that utility:

http://hddguru.com/software/2006.04.12- ... rmat-Tool/

and see what the website administrator added to that page, after I alterted him about problems reported by other users:

Warning:The tool might give unpredictable results on an unsupported OS (Windows Vista or Windows 7). Try only on your own risk. Relevant links:
Problems with HDD low level format software
Windows 7 issues
Developer is currently working on these issues.

In summary - you were trying to do something which is not supported (by using that tool on Win 7), so problems are expected Instead, I recommend that you could just use a zero-fill (i.e. overwrite) type of disk erasure - for your situation, that is all you needed to do. There are several utilities which could do that (e.g. HDDScan, Seatools etc. etc.). It is just bad luck that you chose a utility which is not tested/supported on Win 7, and you were using Win 7.

Don't worry about the errors that you saw when running the Low Level Format tool on Win 7 - but, of course, any disk can fail, so make sure that you have backups of data which you cannot afford to lose.

[Bender]

Thanks for your answer.

I didnt see that it wasnt supported by Windows 7.

Do I have to do a zero-fill, or could I just leave the HDD as it is now?
I did the LLF just for deleting my data to "reset" my HDD because the first clone program failed.

All of my data is still on my old HDD, so I have my backup

[Vulcan]

Thanks for your answer.

Do I have to do a zero-fill, or could I just leave the HDD as it is now?
I did the LLF just for deleting my data to "reset" my HDD because the first clone program failed.

Since your second clone (using Acronis) was successful, then you do not need to do anything more now.

In fact you did not really need to try to erase the first "partial" (incomplete) clone which failed, (using Paragon), because that data on the destination (new) disk would have been overwritten by a subsequent successful clone onto that new disk - but I can understand why it feels "cleaner" to know that you are starting with a clean destination (new) disk. Therefore as I said above, as I understand your situation and after the successful second cloning, you can leave the new HDD as it is now

[Bender]

Very nice, thats what I wanted to hear.

Im pretty much a "perfectionist" and I dont have a good feeling when something goes wrong and such. But now I can be sure that it'll be fine.

Thank's again for your time and answers!

[Vulcan]

You're very welcome - good luck!