John, I understand the concern but the Powermax diagnostic is specifically designed by Maxtor for Maxtor drives. PC Cowboy said it was a Maxtor drive so he should be good to go with it. I just used their latest version on an 80 Gig Maxtor myself and it was the only thing that would work on the drive. Cy -- John Durham <john.modec@xxxxxxxxxx> wrote: Talk of low level formatting makes my knees tremble. Some may remember the drama some time ago when a Qantum drive was ruined by low level formatting. That was because the control data for the drive was written on the disk surface. Low level formatting removed it, making the drive no better than a boat anchor. For that reason, please be very sure the drive can be safely treated this way before doing it. Need I say more? See here for details: http://modecideas.com/faq45.htm?pchelpers -- -------list-services-below----------- Regards, John Durham (list moderator) <http://modecideas.com/contact.html?sig> Freelists login at http://www.freelists.org/cgi-bin/lsg2.cgi List archives at http://www.freelists.org/archives/pchelpers PC-HELPERS list subscribe/unsub at http://modecideas.com/discuss.htm?sig Latest news live feeds at http://modecideas.com/indexhomenews.htm?sig Good advice is like good paint- it only works if applied.