The best program for low-level formatting of hard drive and USB devices - review. Formatting a hard drive at a low level

Greetings!
In certain situations, it becomes necessary to perform low-level formatting of the HDD (hard drive), for example, by formatting it at a low level, the data on it will be permanently deleted (without the possibility of recovery, including with special utilities). This can be useful in a situation where you want to sell a computer, but at the same time you do not want there to be even a theoretical possibility of recovering the data that was once on the hard drive.

You can also try to “cure” bad sectors on your hard drive using low-level formatting.

During the low-level formatting process, bad sectors (so-called bad blocks) are marked as unusable. However, it is worth remembering that this procedure is not a panacea for the appearance of new bad blocks while using the hard drive.

In general, it is worth taking as a rule - if the disk begins to “fail” and unreadable blocks (bad blocks) begin to appear on it, then there is a risk of eventually losing all the data on it at once.
If the disc is under warranty, return it immediately - this is a warranty case. If the warranty has passed, then after the “treatment”, store only non-essential data on it, for example, movies and music.

If we talk about Flash disks (flash drives), then the low-level formatting procedure in some cases can revive a “failed” storage medium.

This formatting method is not recommended for SSD drives. To work with this type of media, fundamentally different solutions are used.

HDD Low Level Format Tool

Despite the fact that there are a sufficient number of programs of this kind, including some official applications from HDD and Flash drive manufacturers, I still recommend using one of the best universal utilities of this kind -.

This utility is distinguished from similar ones by the ease of management and the ease with which it performs low-level formatting of hard drives, flash cards and drives. Thanks to its simple and intuitive interface, even a novice user can master this utility.

The utility is paid, but in free mode the program works in full-featured mode with only one exception: the maximum low-level formatting speed is 50 MB/s.

For example, in the free mode of operation of the HDD Low Level Format Tool utility, low-level formatting of a 640 GB HDD disk lasted about 2 hours. Sometimes, however, the speed dropped significantly below the stated 50 MB/s.

Main features:

• Supports work with media connected via: IDE, SATA, USB, SCSI, Firewire;
• HDD drives supported: Seagate, Western Digital, Hitachi, Maxtor, Samsung, etc.
• Low-level formatting of USB and Flash cards is supported (via a card reader).

Low-level formatting will permanently destroy all data on the disk! The program supports working with disks that are connected via USB and Firewire interfaces. In other words, you can perform low-level formatting and try to bring even classic USB flash drives back to life.

Low-level formatting will remove the MBR and partition table from the disk. An attempt to recover data from a disk formatted in this way is unlikely to be successful, even if you contact a service that specializes in data recovery. In this regard, be extremely careful and cautious when working with this software.

When is low-level formatting used?

Most often, low-level formatting is resorted to for the following reasons:

• As mentioned above, one of the most common reasons is getting rid of errors and “curing” the hard drive. During the low-level formatting process, bad (unreadable) blocks are marked as bad and excluded from subsequent use. This to some extent increases the reliability of the SATA or IDE hard drive and increases its service life.
• There was a need to reliably destroy (without the possibility of recovery) the existing data on a hard drive, for example, for selling it separately or as part of an entire computer. However, for this task it is better and more correct to use the appropriate solution - for , for .
• Sometimes this method is used to completely destroy various types of viruses and malicious elements (that write themselves into the boot area, etc.), which are difficult to get rid of in any other way.
• In some cases, the need for low-level formatting arises when migrating from the Linux operating system to Microsoft Windows.
• In some cases, this procedure helps to “revive” a failed flash drive. For example, when it is impossible to write anything to it and formatting it using standard means in Windows also fails.
• When connecting a new drive, although in this situation regular formatting is often sufficient.

Low-level formatting of Flash disk (flash drive)\HDD

Important details:

1) The hard disk (HDD) is formatted according to exactly the same principle as the flash drive demonstrated in the example.

And yes, the flash drive is the most common one, made in China. Reason for low-level formatting: when connected, it stopped being displayed in the system. However, the HDD Low Level Format Tool detected it, and it was decided to try to “cure” it.

2) Low-level formatting is possible both under Windows and DOS, but with some reservations. A fairly common mistake, especially among novice users, is trying to format the disk from which the operating system was loaded. In other words, if you have one single hard drive installed on your computer and, for example, the Windows operating system is installed on it, then to directly format this disk you need to boot from another medium, for example, a Live-CD. Or you can connect your HDD to another computer (or laptop) and perform low-level formatting from there.

We're done with the nuances, now let's look at the process of low-level formatting using the HDD Low Level Format Tool.

There are two versions of this utility - the first requires installation, and the second is portable (works without installation). Choose the option that is best for you.

1) After starting the program, a welcome window will appear asking you to register it. The free option differs from the paid one only in that low-level formatting does not occur at full speed. Agree that you don’t have to resort to this formatting procedure very often, and therefore the free option is often sufficient. To continue working with the program, click on the button Continue for free, which loosely means continue for free.

2) Next, you will see a window in which all connected drives found by the program will be listed. Keep in mind that drives are designated in a special way here: in place of the usual C:\.. D:\, etc. the window displays the physical disks themselves. And, accordingly, you need to navigate here by the name and capacity of the drive.

To continue, select the desired drive and click Continue >>>.

3) As a result, a window should appear with three tabs. In the Device details tab, you can highlight information about the drive you have selected, and in the S.M.A.R.T. tab. Find out the health parameters of the drive. The low-level formatting procedure is launched in the LOW-LEVEL FORMAT tab.

Once you open this tab, click on the FORMAT THIS DEVICE button located there.

Note: when you check the box next to the Perform quick wipe... item, the usual formatting will be carried out in place of the low-level formatting.

4) A warning will then appear, the essence of which is that all data on the media will be permanently deleted during the formatting process. Just in case, check again to see if there is any important data left on the drive. If there are none, then click the corresponding button to start the procedure.

5) The low-level formatting process will begin. During this period, you cannot disconnect or remove the flash drive/disk, try to open the media in a file manager, and especially try to write something to it at the time of formatting. It is best not to launch any resource-intensive programs or applications during this period and not to use the computer at all until formatting is complete.

When the progress bar reaches 100%, formatting is complete. You can close the program.

An important nuance: the time it takes to format the drive depends on several factors: the operating mode of the utility (paid or free), as well as on the condition of the disk itself. If there are a lot of errors (unreadable sectors) on it, then the process will take some time and you will have to wait...

After low-level formatting, all information on the disk will be deleted, tracks and sectors will be marked, and some service and technical information will be recorded. Naturally, you won’t be able to access this disk yet, and you won’t see it with most programs either. This disk requires a high-level formatting procedure, during which a file table is created, etc.

In order to carry out high-level formatting, you can use the standard option offered by the Windows operating system. Formatting the hard drive is carried out in the system tool window, because... from the file manager the disk disappears after low-level formatting. If we are talking about a flash drive, then just go to My Computer (This Computer) and right-click on the required disk there (if, of course, it is visible), and in the context menu that appears, select Format... Especially the flash drive used in the review began to appear in the system after the “treatment”.

In the window that appears, you will need to select a file system: for HDDs (hard drives) this is exclusively NTFS, and for flash drives you can also select FAT (provided that you do not try to write a file larger than 4 GB to it).
You can optionally enter a volume label. Then click on the Start button.

Once this procedure is completed, you can use your storage medium again. However, never forget to back up your data, especially from media that has caused you to doubt its reliability.

Brief summary

In this article, we examined the low-level formatting procedure in detail, and the reasons for carrying out this operation were announced.
After reading it, you now know how to low-level format a hard drive or flash drive (including those connected via a card reader).

If you have any questions, you can ask them in the comments.

FAT32 (File Allocation Table) is a file system introduced by Microsoft in August 1996 and was developed to improve the previous version of FAT 16.

Conceptual improvements include increasing the volume size to 8 TB versus 2 GB in FAT 16 and increasing the maximum file size that the file system supports from 2 GB to 4 GB.

What should users do who need to transfer files larger than 4 GB to a flash drive?

Formatting a flash drive:

Low-level formatting of a flash drive

Low-level formatting is used to erase information without the possibility of recovery.

This approach is important if there was and is confidential data on the flash drive and you need to prevent third parties from accessing it.

Attention! It is important to remember that this procedure should not be abused unless absolutely necessary.

You won’t be able to perform low-level formatting using standard Windows tools, so let’s download and install the shareware HDD Low Level Format utility.

To perform low-level formatting you must:

After creating partitions on a flash drive, a reasonable question arises about deleting them. We use any disk manager that can delete and create partitions. I have the free AOMEI Partition Assistant Standard Edition. Launch AOMEI, select the desired partition on the flash drive right in the main window and press selection in the side or context menu “Delete partition”. After that, click “Apply” in the main menu of the program. The section will be deleted. Similarly, delete the remaining sections.

After deleting the last partition, the flash drive will become inaccessible (not visible) in Windows. This is because all deleted partitions have moved to the unallocated zone. Select our flash drive in the disk menu, and in the context menu “Create partition”. Next, “Apply” in the main menu of the program. The section will be created. The flash drive will return to its original state and will contain only one partition.

There are two possible solutions to the issue here. If you need to delete some partitions without affecting the files of the rest, we use any disk manager that can delete partitions one by one. If you need to delete all partitions and return the flash drive to its original single-partition state, use the BOOTICE program directly.

High-level full formatting

High-level full media formatting (HMF) is the software process of creating a master boot record (MBR) and partitioning the working space of the storage medium into partitions. At the same time, the boot area of ​​the media is overwritten, the old one is “demolished” and a new partition structure is created, consisting of an empty file system. Again, high-level full formatting applies to hard drives, since they are the only ones that have multi-partition file structures.

Of course not. Nobody forbids creating two, three, or five partitions on a flash drive. The Windows operating system “sees” and agrees to work with only one of them. The rest falls into the category of “buns”.

Facebook Google Plus How to low-level format a SATA or ATA (IDE) hard drive?

What does low-level formatting of a SATA or ATA (IDE) drive mean?

In fact, the term "low level" is not entirely correct. The low-level formatting process used many years ago on MFM hard drives has little in common with today's "low-level formatting" of SATA and ATA (IDE) drives. The only safe method to return your Seagate device to its original state is to completely erase the data using the SeaTools for DOS command. In this case, the entire hard disk space is simply filled with zeros (0).

Why do you need to clean your hard drive?

Most often, a complete wipe of a SATA or ATA (IDE) hard drive is performed for the following reasons:

• to remove a virus that cannot be removed without destroying the boot sector;
• to replace the operating system with complete removal of data from the disk;
• to delete sensitive personal information;
• when searching for bad sectors, which can be detected and replaced with good ones during recording.

The design of modern disk drives provides additional overridden sectors. Typically, data from sectors becomes difficult to read long before they become completely unavailable. In this case, when overriding, the actual data bytes in the sector are preserved and transferred to the new spare sector. Likewise, when a problem occurs while writing data to a disk drive (for example, during a full wipe), the drive's firmware removes the hard sector and replaces it before reporting a successful write.

How to clean a hard drive?

• Erasing a SATA or ATA (IDE) drive removes 100% of your data. Make sure you have a backup copy of all data first.
• The best option is to use the SeaTools for DOS Data Wipe command on a Seagate hard drive. The BIOS of some systems has a low-level formatting option, but due to the unpredictability of the result, it is not recommended to use it.

SeaTools for DOS can be downloaded from the SeaTools home page. It includes three options for cleaning (completely deleting data). The "Full Data Erase" command fills all data sectors on the disk with zeroes and eliminates most defects.

The standard boot process for SeaTools for DOS creates a bootable CD or floppy disk. Boot from a CD or floppy disk to launch SeaTools for DOS. After this, it is useful to check the disk. A short basic check takes less than a minute. A long basic scan can take several hours depending on the disk capacity. In preparation for cleaning,

Erase Track Zero: Only erases the first 63 sectors on the disk, which takes less than a second. This removes the master boot record (MBR) and partition table. When installing a new operating system, the disk appears "empty".

Erase by time: erases sectors within a certain time (up to 5 minutes). These commands allow you to overwrite sectors at the beginning of the disk, where most of the operating system files are located.

Erase All: Erasing all data sectors from the disk, which takes a long time. The procedure often takes several hours. Its advantage is that it is possible to detect and redefine all damaged (poorly readable) sectors and replace them with healthy spare ones. This option is closest to the original concept of low-level formatting.

Once the process is complete, reboot the system from the installation CD and follow the instructions for preparing the disk (partitioning and formatting) and installing the operating system.

Low-level formatting is the partitioning of a hard drive or flash drive into sectors and tracks with data recording for its operation. During this process, all information that was on the media is completely erased, without the possibility of its recovery.

Use Cases

Low-level formatting of a flash drive or hard drive is performed only if it is necessary to prevent the leakage of confidential information if the media is transferred to other parties. This process is used by government agencies, services working with restricted information, or private structures (to preserve industrial and commercial secrets). In addition, low-level formatting of flash drives and hard drives leads to blocking of damaged segments of the media during this process. Despite the fact that modern hard drives can automatically skip bad sectors (although the possibility of failure exists for them too), older generation drives are not able to do this. It is useful to carry out this process for preventive purposes to ensure reliable operation of information storage devices.

How to do low-level formatting?

This process is performed by the hard drive manufacturer using specialized equipment. It is almost impossible to fully implement it at home. However, there is software that comes as close as possible to low-level formatting, which is quite sufficient to preserve confidential information recorded on the media. One such program is HDD Low Level Format. Using it, you can perform low-level formatting of a flash drive or hard drive. The first step is to install this software and run it. A window will appear asking you to purchase the full version of the program, which, unlike the free version, has no limit on the speed of the rewriting process. The user is given a choice: purchase the full version or continue working for free. Next, a list of media that are available for the formatting process will be offered. You must select the required drive and click the continue button. Next, a window will open in which information about the media will be displayed, including the percentage of formatting completed. A warning will appear indicating that all data will be lost. If the user agrees to this, the process starts. After it is completed, you can close the program. However, you should know that low-level formatting erased all information on the disk, marked sectors and tracks, recorded service data, but did not record the file table, therefore, you will not be able to access such media. To do this, you need to perform high-level formatting. Let's look at what this requires.

Formatting a disk in the Windows operating system

1. Go to the “My Computer” section and select the desired media from the list. Right-click on it and select “Format”.

2. In the window with parameters, click “Start”.

3. A data loss warning will appear. Click “Ok”.

4. The formatting process begins, which will end quite quickly. When finished, close the window. That's it, the device is ready for use.