quick vs thorough format?

  • Thread starter Thread starter Todd and Margo Chester
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T

Todd and Margo Chester

Hi,

When installing in XP on a bare hard drive, the XP
install will ask if you want to do a quick or a thorough
format of the hard drive. Questions:

1) other than the speed, what is the difference between
these two formats?

2) again, other than the speed, why would you choose one
over the other?

-Todd
 
Quick simply creates the structures, Full creates the structures and
performs integrity tests on the drive, such as bad block testing.
With today's modern drives that employ SMART, I would only do
a full format on a "Suspect" drive that has exhibited problems during
prior use.
 
Todd said:
Hi,

When installing in XP on a bare hard drive, the XP
install will ask if you want to do a quick or a thorough
format of the hard drive. Questions:

1) other than the speed, what is the difference between
these two formats?

2) again, other than the speed, why would you choose one
over the other?
Click to expand...

The full format checks the hard drive for bad sectors; the quick format
doesn't. I don't bother doing a full format on a brand new hard drive
but I do the full format on hard drives that have been around for a
while. This is not to say that a drive can't fail out of the box; they
do and I've had them do that, but it isn't the norm.

Malke
 
Todd said:
Hi,

When installing in XP on a bare hard drive, the XP
install will ask if you want to do a quick or a thorough
format of the hard drive. Questions:

1) other than the speed, what is the difference between
these two formats?

2) again, other than the speed, why would you choose one
over the other?

-Todd
Click to expand...

The quick format does not scan your HD for bad sectors (areas) where as the
through format does, if any bad sectors are found on your HD the operating
system discards that area and marks it not to be used.

http://support.microsoft.com/?kbid=302686
 
MAP said:
The quick format does not scan your HD for bad sectors (areas) where as
the
through format does, if any bad sectors are found on your HD the operating
system discards that area and marks it not to be used.

http://support.microsoft.com/?kbid=302686
Click to expand...

Think its important to point out that bad area remaps only works for the
partitioned area, not the entire hard drive. It doesn't touch the partition
table itself, or the master boot record area.
Misleading is the statement that files are removed. The file allocation
table is remade instead. The files are still there until written over in
some fashion.
 
Jonny said:
Think its important to point out that bad area remaps only works for
the partitioned area, not the entire hard drive. It doesn't touch
the partition table itself, or the master boot record area.
Misleading is the statement that files are removed. The file
allocation table is remade instead. The files are still there until
written over in some fashion.
Click to expand...

Where did this come from?
 
Todd said:
When installing in XP on a bare hard drive, the XP
install will ask if you want to do a quick or a thorough
format of the hard drive. Questions:

1) other than the speed, what is the difference between
these two formats?
Click to expand...

Quick just erases the FAT. Thorough checks for bad areas on drive.
 
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