I guess you didn't read my article. Nevermind, I'm not continuing to debate something which is simply not true. Go ahead, keep thinking you're doing a LowLevel format or that you were able to do that Who am I to stop you. I will, however, contact Seagate to ask them why they tell these tools do "low level format" when they don't.
Do what you think you need to do! Who am I to stop you?! What counts for me is outcome and success for my business with knowledge I archived from trustful sources, in this case an HDD Manufacturer. By the way, years ago, there were also an time we were need to LowLevel format an HDD before to be able to use the first time, it wasn't even done by the HDD Manufacturer!
To be clear. NO CURRENT DRIVE (including those of many years into the past) can be low-level formatted by the user. There are several reasons why that is so. The most important one is that many manufacturers store important information into a non-user-accessible part of the HDD. That data is controlled and maintained by the drive firmware (which is already a small OS in itself) including crypto key, SMART data, spare area and landing/parking zone. A true low level format would wipe out all that information and render the drive useless (except as paperweight). What we call "low level format" now is a firmware-controlled zero-fill of the user-accessible part of the drive. It does exactly what we want, and goes as low as we are allowed to by the firmware. To do a true low level format you have to bypass the firmware (bad idea unless you know what you do). Yes, I'm using LLF (licensed), along with HDAT2, MHDD, Victoria and the like. I guess absolutely no one want the times of MFM/Winchester disks back, where you had to enter all bad sector CHS addresses by hand after each low level format, using a list you got from the manufacturer? Wouldn't even possible since LBA does not refer to fixed physical addresses anymore. Enough offtopic for today, I guess.
Well, I guess you will get different advice from different people here on MDL as well. Since you are worried that your license may be flagged non-genuine eventually, and you seem to ignore all advice to use Daz loader since you don't trust anything that comes without source code, have you thought about instaling Professional edition and using kms? There are kms emulators here at MDL for which source code is available.
@ rjk123, if I was that paranoid about using trusted methods on forum or even key given by a friend I would just buy the OS. 57 posts later and still no solution suitable for the OP in fact we are onto completely different subject
All that the OP has asked and stated has been answered and discussed to try and help. But the OP is not buying any of it. So why bother asking, especially if you trust no one as he/she states. So tfosorcim What do you really think. Did you read the whole thread