Well, all I can say is that Apple has got it wrong. I can, and have, low-level formatted my hard drive. Select the drive, initialisation options shows LLF as a viable option (assuming selected disk is not start-up disk). Then, clicking on initialise, there is a summary screen of what drive setup is going to do, like partition options, and what type of formatting. Here, again, LLF is shown. Then, when 'initialise' is selected, the program shows "Performing Low-Level-Format" for a while (time shown varies, depending on size of Hard Drive), then it goes on to zero-all data (if it's selected) and finally finishes off, naming the disk etc etc.
>If you don't believe me that Drive Setup greys out the LLF option >when an IDE drive is selected, then believe Apple: Sorry, but I'll believe my own eyes, and they are quite certain of what they are looking at. :-). I'm quite certain you can see very well too of course, and that they ARE greyed out on your machines, but on the 60-or-so machines that I have formatted in this way, it worked. And worked well. You can think I'm some crack-pot that must have 3rd party drivers without knowing it, or one who uses cracked versions of Drive setup or something if you want to, but it is simply not true. When you tried it, what did you start-up from? I used an old OS 8.5 CD on the powerbook. -- John -- PowerBooks is sponsored by <http://lowendmac.com/> and... Small Dog Electronics http://www.smalldog.com | Enter To Win A | -- Canon PowerShot Digital Cameras start at $299 | Free iBook! | Support Low End Mac <http://lowendmac.com/lists/support.html> PowerBooks list info: <http://lowendmac.com/lists/powerbooks.shtml> --> AOL users, remove "mailto:" Send list messages to: <mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]> To unsubscribe, email: <mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]> For digest mode, email: <mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]> Subscription questions: <mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]> Archive: <http://www.mail-archive.com/powerbooks%40mail.maclaunch.com/> Using a Mac? Free email & more at Applelinks! http://www.applelinks.com