Quick And Full Erase - Hard Drive - Lenovo E100 Hardware Maintenance Manual

To allow simultaneous testing of multiple hard drives whenever possible, the
FDAT module is written as a set of multitasking functions. Each drive under test
can run the same test or run a different test at the same time. Each subtest is
written to handle a single test pass and all test variables are kept track of in a
structure unique for each drive.
However, when testing IDE drives, FDAT will not perform simultaneous testing of
IDE drives that are attached to the same IDE cable. For example, if FDAT is testing
four IDE drives on a PC, it will perform simultaneous testing on drives 1 and 3
first (master drives), then perform tests on 2 and 4 (slave drives). FDAT will also
perform simultaneous testing on a master and slave that are on separate IDE
cables, but will not perform simultaneous tests on a master and slave on the same
IDE cable. This generally increases the amount of time needed to test multiple IDE
drives.
Another limitation of FDAT'S multitasking capability is the use of Ultra DMA
(UDMA). Only one drive at a time can access the UDMA channel and the UDMA
channel buffer must be kept high in order to maintain a speed advantage over
other data transfer modes. In order to use the UDMA channel during testing, users
must disable the multitasking feature.
Destructive versus non-destructive testing:
Most of the tests found in FDAT are non-destructive. This means that PC-Doctor
program will preserve any data that is present on the tested media prior to
beginning any destructive operations (such as write operations). However, users
can run certain tests in destructive mode (i.e. surface scan tests). Destructive tests
will speed up testing because FDAT does not preserve the data on the media prior
to the test beginning. Unlike non-destructive tests, any data present on the media
prior to the test beginning is lost.
FDAT allows for enabling or disabling destructive tests, as well as specifying a
range of destructive and non-destructive sectors on the tested drive. This is done
through the configuration of the FDAT.INI. If destructive and non-destructive
ranges somehow overlap, then the overlapped area is considered non-destructive.
For example, if users specify both destructive and non-destructive ranges as the
same, then the entire drive is tested as non-destructive.

Quick and Full erase - hard drive

The diagnostics program offers two hard drive format utilities:
v Quick Erase Hard Drive
v Full Erase Hard Drive
The Quick Erase Hard Drive provides a DOS utility that performs the following:
v Destroys the Master Boot Record (MBR) on the hard drive.
v Destroys all copies of the FAT Table on all partitions (both the master and
backup).
v Destroys the partition table.
v Provides messages that warn the user that this is a non-recoverable process.
The Full Erase Hard Drive provides a DOS utility that performs the following:
v Performs all the steps in Quick Erase.
v Provides a DOS utility that writes random data to all sectors of the hard drive.
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Lenovo 3000 E100