Low Level Format with PERC4e Controller PE2850

Question

Hello,

I have bought a PE2850 and a PV220S to setup a disk array with that components. The PE2850 has a PERC4e controller with two external terminators. I connected the PV220S to the controller and everything will working fine. The hardsdisk ashown as "Ready" and I can put them into a array conifguration. If I am initialize the harddisk I get a error that the harddisks in the array are not going online. They have an "Error". I called the harddisk dealer an he told me that the harddisks are low level formated with 520 Byte for a IBM host system. I got me the advice to format the harddisks low level with the block size 512 Byte and everything will working fine. He recommend me to do that with an Adaptec controller. But I have only a PERC4e controller inside.

My question is, how I can low level format the harddisks with the right blocksize with my PERC4 controller? Is there anything to do how I can get the harddisks online?

Thank you for some hints and I hope to hear from you soon.

Kind Regards,
Ralf ;-)

pcmeiners · Answer

All modern drives are servo based, which cannot be low level formatted except by the manufacturer. Are thes drives 'brand new' (>three year warranty) or are they pulls, oem, recert or refurbed drives?

rsiebert · Answer

Hi, I have bought used drives which where in a host system befor. Is there a possibility with the PERC4 controller to format this drives an bring it up and running? Cheers, Ralf

pcmeiners · Answer

Other than formatting the drives from within the raid bios setup, there is little you can do. Years ago I ran into a similiar situation with some drives, they would show up, but not initialize correctly. If you have a 2850 with internal bays, try setting up an array on the internal as a test

http://www.cs.uwaterloo.ca/~brecht/servers/docs/PowerEdge-2600/en/Perc4di/UG/bios.htm#1112251

Dev Mgr · Answer

If you want to do a low level format just to wipe data off a disk so you can re-sell the drives, one option is to create a raid 0 on the drives in question and let this finish initializing. Then create a raid 5 or raid 10 on those same disks. Do the type of changes a few times and it's pretty close to impossible to recover any data from the drives.

rsiebert · Answer

Thanks, pcmeiners

I have checked the menu Objects -> Physical Drives. I found only the menu option Clear bt I think it will not be the same like Format for a Low Level Format like described in the link which you send me. Maybe there is another option to do that low level format?

pcmeiners · Answer

Sorry for confusing you... <ADMIN NOTE: Broken link has been removed from this post by Dell> This controller does not have a format option as does the Perc 4 di, closest to it would be to 'initalize', as DevMgr suggested. I have not read of of these manuals in a while, I see they refer to a low level format, which is really an upper level format, so be it, an initialization will do format it as 'low' as the controller is capable of.

rsiebert · Answer

Hi,

many thanks for the hints. The problem with the disk is the blocksize of 520 Byte which I need to change to 512 Byte. That#s all. But I thing the PERC4 controller has no functionality, may be with another tool, to change the blocksize and format the disks. Is there any tool which can do the job for me?

pcmeiners · Answer

Looked through the command line interterface, 512 is the default size which a controller initializes at, I know of no other util .

PowerEdge HDD/SCSI/RAID

Low Level Format with PERC4e Controller PE2850

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