I format them to clean them up.  Many of the drives that
I get in surplus may be in undetermined shape.  It is wise
karma to do a low-level format on them.  My motto is,
"If the VAX can't format it... it is a doorstop!"  (:+}}...
I keep a spare VAX handy just for said formatting purpose.
It has resurrected many, many drives, others thought were
doorstops, over the years... to my adavantage....(:+}}...
Alas, finding it can't handle drives over 8g, sort of limits its
usefulness of late, where I run into lots of say Sun 9g sca
drives that need to be cleaned up, etc.  I really was hoping
that it would handle the larger drives.  What I don't know for
sure is if it will READ the drives and use them over 8g,
correctly.  Anyone know for sure?  I have hung 9g drives
on it, but never filled one up, yet to see if it rolled back to
zero or something strange.  It could be just a prom formatter
issue, and may not matter on running systems?  Any of the
VAX gurus know for sure?  I read a couple of the guys on 
the list have hung 9g drives on them and they seem to run
correctly?

Bob Keys