How to low-level format?

[Ayman Altounji]

I have a compaq 4.3GB wide-ultra scsi drive that has some bad sectors to a point that it wont let me install the system partition. It's a seagate ST34572WC in compaq tray mounted in the hot drive slot. I'm using the integrated controller. Seagates site said I needed to use the controllers utility/BIOS. What utility do I need to low-level format the drive and where do I find it or is there a controller BIOS utility built-in that I need to access. Using dos scandisk it found 4 bad sectors. I want to install redhat 6.2 linux. Any help would be appreciated.

[Ayman Altounji]

The only way is through the F10 setup utility (in this case, maybe diskettes). You have to start from System Configuration, press CTRL+A for advanced mode and then go into "Diagnostics and Utilities", then "Test Computer". This will ask for the Server Diags disk. When you get into it's menu, select "Prompted Diagnostics", wait for it to load (there WILL be at least one pause), then choose "Interactive Testing" and select the SCSI controller from the list. You should see a "Format Menu" selection at that point and a "Unconditional Format" would do the job, assuming the bad spots on the disk are repairable.

Here are the files needed:

System Configuration

Server Diagnostics