low-level formatter for linux

[Alan Cox]

> In the bad old days, we used to do low lever format of a disk using a dos asm command and hand enter a set of instructions.
> 
> I do not recall what those instructions were, and I am not certain they would work on a 500GB drive.
> 
> Now that all I have is linux, and my HD has developed many bad blocks,
> I need to back it up and do low level formatting. So, I need a Linux based
> low level formatting tool.

I suspect you need a new disk. What does the smart data for the drive
say ?

Writing zeroes over the whole drive should reallocate any dud sectors.
You can also rewrite specific sector numbers with

	hdparm --write-sector


However a drive generating a lot of bad blocks often means the drive is
ill and likely to fail again.