I pretty much do this (low level format or zero write) for every new install, make sure the drive has no errors on it, no bad sectors.. But until now they have all been ide drives and i have been used to doing all this in dos and then letting win xp pro installation reformat the drive once again. As this is my first sata drive i thought i would make this post, see whats out there that may be different for sata as opposed to ide, other than the fact that one has to do the F6 trick when installing win xp pro, and, in my case, with an intel 965 chipset, the win xp pro must be a full win xp pro w sp2, cant add sp2 on after installing xp pro.
I see i am going at least in the right direction, using the hitachi utility. Dban was the next i was going to try, again, only because the Hitachi prog seemed to be going so slow.
Yes, i was having problems with installing win xp pro and i had the impression it could be because
the drive had bad sectors, thats why i was running the Hitachi prog, but i often, as stated above, run a similar such prog, depending on which make of drive.
So, i do believe i have the info i needed. It seems i am on the right track with the Hitachi program and the other one that was mentioned, dban, i have a copy of that as well, so i guess i am good to go.
thanks to all those for your thoughts.