My mate is formatting his harddrive and...

[voodudejnr]

well it is formatting really slowly and well, I was wondering why that is?

[5614]

well its hard to know with no info!

 

how big is it? what speed is it? what rotation speed does it have? how old is it? is it IDE or serial ATA?

this might not have such an effect, but what buffer does it have?

 

also, what do you call slowly?

 

how are you doing it? through DOS presumably.

[ed84c]

Hes probably just got a lot of stuff on there.

[Dave]

I would think he is doing a low-level format of the drive, which takes a while (since every byte on the drive has to be overwritten). A high-level format only destroys the partition table and wouldn't take as long.

[5614]

normally when someone says they are "formatting" they mean low-level.

 

i think that as well as the obvious things i asked, like, how slow is slowly?!?

 

[edit] this post is utter $***, read on though!

[Dave]

normally when someone says they are "formatting" they mean low-level.

 

Really.

 

I find mostly that people just refer to it in a general sense; for the most part a lot of people don't know what the difference actually is. At least that's how I interpret it.

[5614]

High-level format

 

Method of formatting a hard disk drive that initializes portion of the hard disk drive and creates important file system areas on the disk. A good example of a high-level format is using the format command in MS-DOS. A high-level format is commonly done if a user wishes to erase the hard disk drive and reinstall the operating system back onto the hard disk drive. If errors are present on the hard disk drive, or a high-level format is unable to be completed a low-level format may need to be done first.

 

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Low-level format

 

Initial formatting of a hard drive that initializes the physical tracks on the surface or the internal disks. The drive manufacturer usually performs a low-level format on the hard drive before it is released. If a high-level format is unable to be completed on a hard disk drive a debug routine can be performed on the computer similar to a low-level format to re-initialize the hard disk drive if it is functional. This debug routine can be found on our debug routine page.

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taken from: http://www.computerhope.com/

[5614]

one sec, what am i talking about........... SORRY.... i got that all the wrong way around!

 

i meant people normally mean a high level format such as that issued from a dos format command... my mistake!

[Dave]

No problem

 

(Although I'm sure it clarified what a low/high level format actually is now.)

[Silencer]

Well, when I formatted my linux partiton for ReiserFS, it asked if I wanted to do a "secure format" (or something) where the data was actually overwritten, or just do a normal "wipe the FS" format. Obviously the former will take much longer, but I don't even know if windows has that option. I know there are utilites that will do it for you though (several times, if you're paranoid).

 

As long as it is going (albeit slow) just let it be. If it freezes, which has happened to me in windows, then maybe there is a problem.

[bloodhound]

te low level format i think writes everything to 0

[Dave]

Obviously the former will take much longer, but I don't even know if windows has that option. I know there are utilites that will do it for you though (several times, if you're paranoid).

 

I believe there is an option to do a low-level format if you don't tick the "quick format" option in the format panel.

[5614]

well whenever i format im doing the whole thing, so i just go to DOS and type format c: and does it all!