Quick Format

[bob]

In the installation process, what is the difference between the Quick
Format option and the Format option?

 

[Guest]

In the installation process, what is the difference between the Quick
Format option and the Format option?

quick format only erases the master boot record (a table of what data
is located and where it is located) however it leaves the data on the
drive.

Flamer.

 

[Carey Frisch [MVP]]

Differences between a Quick format and a regular format during a
"clean" installation of Windows XP:
http://support.microsoft.com/kb/302686/en-us

--
Carey Frisch
Microsoft MVP
Windows - Shell/User

Enjoy all the benefits of genuine Microsoft software:
http://www.microsoft.com/genuine/default.mspx

---------------------------------------------------------------------------­---------------------------------

:

| In the installation process, what is the difference between the Quick
| Format option and the Format option?

 

[NoStop]

quick format only erases the master boot record (a table of what data
is located and where it is located) however it leaves the data on the
drive.

Flamer.

Sorry, but the MBR has nothing to do with allocating files on a hard disk.


--
WGA is the best thing that has happened for Linux in a while.

The ULTIMATE Windoze Fanboy:

http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-2370205018226686613

The New and Improved Ballmer:

Is this a modern day equivalent of a Nazi youth rally?:

http://www.ntk.net/media/developers.mpg

A 3D Linux Desktop (video) ...

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[Pennywise]

Sorry, but the MBR has nothing to do with allocating files on a hard disk.

The MBR contains the partition table(s), a Quick format Zeros out the
partition(s) contents info; yet leaves the data on the hard drive.

 

[Pennywise]

The MBR contains the partition table(s), a Quick format Zeros out the
partition(s) contents info; yet leaves the data on the hard drive.

Kinda hard for me to understand a quick format just deletes the FAT
that's located in the MBR.

 

[AZApoker]

yes it does

 

[Dick Sutton]

I believe what everyone is saying (in their different ways) is that a quick
format re-writes the master allocation tables (i.e. the pointers to the
data) such that the system thinks that the disk is newly formated and
contains no data. However, the actual data was never physically erased from
the disk. A full format, on the other hand, WILL erase the data (besides
the above action).

Dick

 

[NoStop]

The MBR contains the partition table(s), a Quick format Zeros out the
partition(s) contents info; yet leaves the data on the hard drive.

Yes, the MBR contains the partition table. But file allocation is stored in
File Allocation Table (FAT) on a DOS system or in MFT (Master File Table)
in NTFS system. A quick format on a FAT/FAT32 system renames the files with
"?" at the start of the filename (as does a delete of the file) and on a
NTFS drive the MFT completely deletes the file cluster entries in the MFT.
No "zeroing out" of the partition table occurs. If it did a format would
mean that you'd lose any partitions on your hard drive and that certainly
isn't the case.


--
WGA is the best thing that has happened for Linux in a while.

The ULTIMATE Windoze Fanboy:

http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-2370205018226686613

The New and Improved Ballmer:

Is this a modern day equivalent of a Nazi youth rally?:

http://www.ntk.net/media/developers.mpg

A 3D Linux Desktop (video) ...

View Some Common Linux Desktops ...
http://shots.osdir.com/

 

[NoStop]

I believe what everyone is saying (in their different ways) is that a
quick format re-writes the master allocation tables (i.e. the pointers to
the data) such that the system thinks that the disk is newly formated and
contains no data. However, the actual data was never physically erased
from
the disk. A full format, on the other hand, WILL erase the data (besides
the above action).

Both formats will erase the data (within the FAT/MFT), but a full format
will also check the disk for errors while a quick format will not. Hence
the ability for specialized utilities to recover data from a drive that has
been fully formatted.

The only way to physically remove the data is to replace the data with 1's
and 0's and again there are utilities available to do that. A format is not
such a utility.

Dick

--
WGA is the best thing that has happened for Linux in a while.

The ULTIMATE Windoze Fanboy:

http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-2370205018226686613

The New and Improved Ballmer:

Is this a modern day equivalent of a Nazi youth rally?:

http://www.ntk.net/media/developers.mpg

A 3D Linux Desktop (video) ...

View Some Common Linux Desktops ...
http://shots.osdir.com/

 

[Frank]

In the installation process, what is the difference between the Quick
Format option and the Format option?

Quick Format does not check for bad clusters. Otherwise they are
the same.

 

[Jonny]

MBR contains the layout of where the partitions are located, and which one
if any partition is active. The MBR resides at the beginning of the hard
drive. Partitions are a separate entity from the MBR. Partitions may exist
anywhere on the hard drive except the area used by the MBR. An active
partition with an operating system contains a boot record. If found, this
where the bootstrap stops and the OS takes over.

Initially, a new partition contains a reserved area with a blank file
allocation table. A first time format (full format) provides the layout map
for possible file locations in cluster size in this table. Bad areas are
mapped out. Saving files provides for using this table to locate files
later. A quick format wipes out the file locations in the table only.

In either case, full format or quick format, the file data still exists on
the hard drive. Their file locations are lost as consequence using normal
methods of access to files via the file allocation table. If used, the
previous file data will be written over from time to time. But, remnants
may still exist due to smaller amount of file space usage etc.