Quick question about hard disk low level format tool

[PC-MOT]

I'm using this to format my 2tb WD ext. Hdd.
My question is that it seems to be taking ages to run through. Ive not used the program before adn its bout 3 times slower than windows format utility (24 hrs and its only done about 3.5%).
Is this normal for HDLLFT?

 

[fabs]

Hi,

Yes, this is normal. I have used to low level format a 40GB drive years ago with maxblast (a name like that) and it took 8 hours! I cannot imagine how long that could take with a 2 TB drive ...

 

[OldSchoolPC]

You might wanna look into different options. Sometimes using 2 different programs to reformat can give the same end result as a low-level format. If Recuva and PhotoRec can't recover anything, it's (relatively) safe to say that all data is permanently deleted.

 

[Ccomp5950]

If you are using low level format to hide the data stop and use DBAN

If you are low level formatting for any other reason, it's probably not needed.

 

[kisk]

+1 on Darik's Boot And Nuke -- lots of options for wiping, including DoD and more powerful wipes..

 

[FoolishTech]

Just to get technical, modern hard drives (everything since MFM/RLL) cannot be low-level formatted unless at the factory - it's impossible as there is no controller on a modern hard drive that can perform this function.

What you're referring to is typically writing zeros to the drive which partially overwrites data including the high-level format...

But as others have said if you're writing zeros for security, you're not doing well. Look into the utils others have mentioned.

 

[jfmiller52]

You can also checkout parted magic ( partedmagic(dot)com ). It has a couple utils to wipe drives, most notably nwipe, a fork of dban, but running in a full linux live environment. it also has the basics, (shred,dd, etc).

it's usb and pxe bootable as well, which is very handy. i use it daily.