Just wondering what people's experiences of this are ?

I've had a few problems installing XP Pro on my Myriad PC (home studio stand-alone), and I've been low-level formatting (sorry, I've been doing a full zero-fill of the drive; apparently a low-level format is done at the manufacturing stage, and can't be done by the end-user) my 2 Maxtor 200 Gb hard drives after each failed install, to enable a fresh installation again.
I've read on various net forums (I've been busy scouring the web on this subject !) that this isn't really neccessary - a Windows format, or a normal format using using your hard drive manufacturer's utility floppy disc will suffice.
A lot of the advice states you'd only need to do a full zero-fill if you are suffering hard drive problems, or have had a serious virus infection.

I'd be interested in people's views on this subject.

Cheers.

Chris.

I haven't had to do a low level format in more than a decade. All Windows NT based OSes (so NT/2K/XP/2003) all have partitioning and formatting functionality built in to the installation process and I've never had a problem with it.

It would help if you could explain exactly what the problem you are having is?

Incidentally, low level formatting can be done by an end-user. It's just that most modern bioses don't include the option. I'm sure you could find a utility to do it. Not that I'd recommend it these days.

Could be that the drive is actually intermittently faulty. I've had no end of problems with the maxtor hard drives that came with our myriad system.

I suggest you go to the maxtor website http://www.maxtor.com go to [software downloads] and download Powermax, which is their HDD testing application.

Simon
HB Sheffield

Thanks for the replies, guys.

There's no problem physically with the drives (they are both new); I've just had loads of problems trying to get my AV software to work with XP Pro (McAfee Security Centre 2005).
I've been zero-filling the drives to enable a fresh install, but I think this may be a bit O.T.T. - as Richard states, a normal format should suffice (I can do that with the XP installation setup, or with the Maxtor hard drive setup software I have).

Cheers.

Chris.

I think a lot of people have had problems with XP & McAfee. I for one found that my XP home ground to a crawl until I uninstalled it. I'm now using AVGfree with no problems.
Simon