![]() A brand new hard-disk you pull out from a factory sealed box, can have bad-sectors. However, experts say that new HDD can have bad sectors too. Theoretically, you don’t need to full-format it a quick one is all it needs this is because our goal isn’t erasing data or scan for bad sectors. When it comes to formatting a brand new HDD, things get a bit confusing. You can find links to websites of such tools at the end of this post. If you are selling or disposing your HDD and you want to make sure that all its data is erased, then you should use a good HDD erasing software instead of relying on Windows built-in full-format feature. If you want to erase data from an old HDD or if you are formatting an old drive in preparation to install new Windows, then using full-format option makes more sense. Writing zeros means all previous data on your HDD is erased. Full format scans for bad sectors and it writes zeros to the whole drive. The question of what happens in a full-format is up for debate, but most people agree to the following points. The full-scan process marks, or labels, all bad sectors it finds your HDD stores this information in allocation table so that the operating system knows not to write data on these sectors. When you perform a full format, your hard drive checks its surface for bad sectors. All the actual data remains intact inside your hard disk when you do a quick-format it just removes the data-sheet that contains information about where files and folders are stored inside your HDD. It is like deleting just the beginning and end of sound tracks on a DVD without changing/deleting anything in between. If you want to help the blog or to thank me you can visit my Amazon Wishlist.Īlso if you like this post share it on social networks and don’t forget if you don’t want to miss new articles subscribe to my Twitter account and to the mailing list on the right side.I bought a new hard drive should I full format it or is it enough to do a quick format? My hard drive is brand new, so is there any reason why I should wait for hours to do a full-format?Ī quick format resets the partition tables in a HDD making all the available space writable again. Or when you want to re-format you new USB Flash Drive or SD Card. In this case, if you didn’t drop the disk it’s safe to do a Quick Format. Such as 2 weeks ago, you did a Full Format and installed Windows and today you want to format it. Quick Format is preferred for disks you already formatted and you are sure that it is not damaged. You don’t know if an old disk is in a good state or you just received a new one from Amazon use Full Format to check for bad sectors. ![]() You want to destroy or give away a disk use Full Format to really remove the files. When To Use Quick Format and Full Format? This scan for bad sectors is the reason why it takes more time to do a Full Format than a Quick Format. When doing a Full Format, Windows is really removing data from the disk and is writing zeroes to all sectors. That’s why you might prefer to perform a Full Format instead. That means Windows can successfully quick format your partition but you can still have bad sectors and one day Windows will try to write data on this bad sector and fails to. Also, Windows does not scan the disk for bad sectors. That means the files are still there on the disk and a specialized program can still recover them. It’s like an address book when Windows writes file names and information where the files are located on the disk. When doing a Quick Format, Windows is actually just deleting the file system structure. The difference is that one is doing a better job than the other one. Full Formatīoth options will empty you disk and format it. Now we know what Windows is doing when it’s formatting your disk for the first time let’s answer our question. FAT for old Windows computer, nowadays the file system structure used is NTFS. Then, it writes a file system structure to the partition. Sometimes during this step windows is checking for defective sectors. It means it divides the disk into one or more regions. The Basics Of Formattingįirst, Windows divides the disk into small units, in sectors, in order to be accessed later on. When you’re installing Windows or just when you plug a brand new disk Windows is asking you to format it and you may wonder what’s the difference between a Quick Format and a Full Format on Windows? So today let’s see the difference between a Quick Format and a Full Format.
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