Recently I found out that the drive /home resided on was causing some
prolems (medium SCSI errors). I rebooted into Mac OS and attempted to
reformat it with a patched HDSC setup program. Unfortunately, it errore
out with the most informative error: "Could initialize disk. Disk was
unable to initialize." Oh I love Apple's error messages!

So, I went into FWB tools to check up on the disk, and tried initializing
the drive from there. Unfortunately, every command I ran was telling me
the device was not ready (well, at this time I of course checked all
cords, plugs, etc.). Not ready! I can hear it had spun up...and I had done
nothing since my failed attempt at formatting...

So I went into FWB's SCSI configure program, and found out that the drive
was saying it wasn't ready. I turned the thing on and off a couple times.
No luck. I even tried starting it up with the "Start/Stop Drive" menu
item. It would re-spin the drive up, but not much more. I felt like I was
defibulating a dying patient :)

Anyway, Apple HDSC setup now refuses to recognize the drive at all. The
Mac side Mkfs program does recognize it, but no help there since there are
no partitions.

What I am wondering: Can I format this drive from within UNIX? I'm sure I
can force it to recognize it, and at least get it out of this stage it's
in now. It seems Apple's HDSC setup set some flag on the drive to make it
think it's in the process of being formatted, and turning off the drive
doesn't help. The drive thinks it's still in the middle of being
formatted!

This is an icky predicament. I've checked FAQ's for information on
formatting a hard drive to no avail...

Thanks a lot for all of your help and support...

Josh Hope
"Of course I run NetBSD!" http://www.netbsd.org
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