"Best" Way To Reformat

[MrMacMan]

In This thread:
Over here I was accused of pirating tons of applications, told I'm screwed and told that Norton was my only savior. And on top of that, back all that up.

So I have.

I have about 4 DVD's of stuff.
An iPod with a visible copy of the music from my computer since my iPod hasn't allowed me to use iTunes to get music onto it and
30+ GB in an external hard drive.

So I used 'SuperDuper!' to clone my hard drive to the external one after I deleted the stuff I have on my iPod + DVDs.

But I can't boot off the external (USB 1.0 probably right?).
Booting CD's is how I was able to backup my current iMac hard drive to the external hard drive.
The CD has Drive 10, DiskWarrior, Disk Util, Tech Tool, SuperDuper and Carbon Copy Cloner.

Sooo This is what I want to do (sorry for long windedness I dont' want people to post 'gimme more info' )

I want to reformat my iMac hard drive because obviously I have bad blocks or such.
1) Is there a 'best way' to reformat --
2) How should I do it with ____ tool.

after its formatted

3) How can I copy the data *back* to my newly formatted Hard Drive?
4) Should I finally install my copy of 10.3 (it killed my Home Dir Files Once before DAMN YOU FILEVAULT!!) and if I should when should I do it.


Thank you very very very much for any step or procedure I should take alone the way!

 

[Fender2112]

If you can startup from the CD drive, use Disk Utility to erase the internal drive. Then reinstall OS X. From here it should be just a matter of copying files.

 

[Blue Velvet]

Thorough?
Do the 8-way random write format thang with Disk Utility.

Just book a weekend break before you start it running.

Put Panther back on. 10.3.4 is my fave for stability...

 

[MrMacMan]

Is it really gonna take all weekend?

Cause my parents are pretty pissed off already.


I was told that my drive has several bad blocks and I would need to 'map' them out or whatever that means.

Is formatting the proper way to stop these massive errors from happening again?

 

[PlaceofDis]

i would at least write zeros to the whole disk, and put panther on there, and that is probably the best way to get your disk drive clean and get a frest start again, but id say zero's are a must

 

[MrMacMan]

*sigh*

Anything else?

Advice?

Best way to get files from external to newly formatted internal drive?

 

[MrMacMan]

In case anyone was wondering:
It didn't work.

The Drive Was Erased Zeroing all data and it still had bad blocks and it REFUSED TO INSTALL 10.3 from the CD!!


Anyway just wanted to tell you.
I dropped it off at Tekserve in NYC which I hope they don't charge me for running tools I already had and tested it with.

 

[angelneo]

Wow, that was loud. My ears are still ringing....

I thought bad sectors/blocks are mostly physical damage and most probably can't be repaired? I could be wrong though

 

[ravenvii]

Sorry, a old thread, but I was looking for information on 8-way random writes...

Anyway, yeah bad sectors/blocks are usually "physical" damage, and usually means a dying drive.

 

[superbovine]

In case anyone was wondering:
It didn't work.

The Drive Was Erased Zeroing all data and it still had bad blocks and it REFUSED TO INSTALL 10.3 from the CD!!


Anyway just wanted to tell you.
I dropped it off at Tekserve in NYC which I hope they don't charge me for running tools I already had and tested it with.

buy a new drive