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Formatting hard drive- the process of creating a file system on its partition, accompanied by deleting data and compiling new structure FS. Functionality for formatting hard drives and solid-state drives is contained in almost all modern operating systems, but the standard mechanism is not always optimal and applicable. About how to format HDD in several ways, this material will tell you in more detail.
Format HDD regular means very simple. To do this, in Explorer you need to select required section, press right button mouse and select “Format” from the pop-up menu.
In the menu that opens, select formatting options. It is recommended to use NTFS as the file system, and leave the cluster size as standard. Checking the box next to “Quick formatting” significantly speeds up the process, but only the FS table is created anew. The data itself physically remains on the disk, although it becomes inaccessible. If you do not check the box, all data will be physically erased (filling each memory cell with zeros), but the process will take a long time. A hard drive with a capacity of several terabytes will take hours to format. But such formatting allows you to permanently destroy data, for example, when transferring the drive to a new owner.
An alternative way to format the HDD using standard means is through the “Control Panel”. To do this, you need to find the “Administration” menu, select “Computer Management” in it and find “Disk Management” in the left column. The menu that opens will display all drives in the form of a structure. The advantage of this method is that this way you can format disks that do not have a partition and therefore are not displayed in Explorer.
How to format a hard drive via the command line
To format a disk via the command line, there is service team format. To use it, you need to run the command line as an administrator and enter the format command. It should look like this:
format [drive letter]:- formatting will happen without any questions, into the same FS that is on the disk, in a slow way(with complete erasure).
format [drive letter]: /q — the "/q" flag runs quick formatting, without physically clearing the contents of its memory. The flag can be placed in combination with any other keys.
format [drive letter]: fs:[ file system] — formatting the selected partition into one of the supported file systems: NTFS, FAT, FAT32.
format [drive letter]: fs:[file system] /q- the same thing, but with quick formatting.
How to format your hard drive before installing Windows
To format your hard drive before installing Windows, you must select full installation, wait until the menu for selecting the partition to install appears, click on to the desired disk and click the “Format” button at the bottom. The system will independently determine optimal method formatting, file system type and cluster size. The whole process takes less than a minute.
Before you format your hard drive - windows installation You may need to create additional system partitions to boot the OS. The screenshot below shows that such a partition takes up 100 MB. It stores part of the system bootloader.
The disadvantage of formatting this way is that you can't manually manipulate the parameters. Ordinary users do not need this, but sometimes it is necessary that instead of the standard NTFS systems there was the same FAT32. For example, such a need arises on tablets with Intel processors and two installed OS (Windows + Android), like the ten-inch Chuwi Hi10. In order for the Windows partition to be visible from Android, it must be formatted in a compatible file system. Work with NTFS without special plugins and third party programs « green robot" can not.
The correct answer to this question is “not at all.” Computer bios It is intended for slightly different purposes and does not have functionality for working with HDD. Usually, “formatting from Bios” is popularly known as formatting via the command line in a text-based operating system (for example, MS-DOS). The advantage of this solution is that you can even work with system partition, which is not used.
For hard format drive through boot disk with DOS you need to create an image of such an OS, write it to a flash drive and copy the formatting utility there. Instead of DOS you can also use special program for working with HDD, for example, GParted. This option is preferable as it is more functional.
To format a HDD from BIOS using a bootable USB flash drive, you need to download. This is an automatic installer that will download and write the latest version of Gparted to a flash drive.
After creating the flash drive, you need to restart the PC, go into Bios (usually by pressing DEl or F2) and find Boot menu. In it you should select the item containing the words “ Boot device priority" or similar in meaning. Among them, you should put your flash drive first. Then you need to press F10, agree to save the settings and wait for loading from the flash drive.
In the loaded menu of the GParted program, you need to select the language, select the disk and find the item responsible for formatting. You can select the file system, cluster size, format type, and other options.
Quite often, users have problems with formatting. Especially if it needs to be done with a system hard drive (usually, but not always, this is C). In this case usual ways won't work.
If the hard drive ( or its section) without system files, then use the formatting method in the system itself.
In my instructions I will show you how to format a hard drive with a system (there, where is windows installed) and without. I'll start with the simplest thing.
Formatting a non-system hard drive or partition
These methods are practically no different from. It can only be produced on those hard drives, which do not have system files ( usually D or E).
No need to worry about formatting the system drive. There is no way to do it this way. You will see a warning that the action is not possible.
Open my computer ( conductor). In it, select the disk, open the context menu and select formatting.
In the window that appears, leave everything as it is ( can be removed quick way, but then you will have to wait a very long time).
The process will take a long time ( depends on volume). You may think that nothing is happening and the computer is just frozen. But in most cases this is not the case.
The same can be done in the disk management window. Use this method if for some reason the first one did not work.
Go to Start >> All Programs >> Administrative Tools >> Computer Management.
In the window that appears, select your hard drive and context menu“Format” as in the image below.
There is 1 more way in command line. Administrator rights are required.
Go to Start menu >> Run ( or Win+R) to open the progress bar. Then go to the command line.
Enter the command there:
Explanation: E- This letter hard disk. NTFS- file system. Q- quick formatting.
Formatting the system disk
When you try to format your system hard drive using the above methods, you will see the error shown below.
Why does this happen? It's simple. Windows cannot format itself. This will cause the system to malfunction and the error provides protection against this.
In addition, even if Windows was installed on another hard drive, then system files, necessary to run the OS can be stored locally. In this case, the BIOS check will begin with it ( C).
It turns out that this is only necessary for future installations new system. Otherwise, you will simply make the computer unusable. Before this you need to prepare a little.
You will need another media with the operating system you plan to install. This method works on any version. I'll demonstrate it on Windows 8.
Set it in advance. First you need to find out its letter. It may be different from "C:" so check this in advance. Now I’ll show you how to do this right during installation.
Press the key combination Shift+F10. On other versions operating systems This keyboard shortcut works the same way.
A command prompt window should appear. In it, enter the command notepad, which will open a notepad. From there you can further view the necessary information.
The Notepad program will open. In it, go to File >> Open or press CTRL+O.
Explorer will open. Go to the “This PC” tab and look at the drive letter you want to format. In my case D. It is designated as local.
Now go back to the command line and enter the command:
Where /FS:NTFS- file system. D:— drive letter. /q- quick formatting.
You can also use the utility directly during the installation process and not use the command line.
Select the language, click on the install button and in the window where you need to select the partition to install, you need to select formatting. See how it looks in the image.
It can also be done using any ( almost) LiveCD. This is the media from which the system boots instead of booting from the hard drive. You can format it directly in Explorer, similar to methods with non-system hard drives. This is possible because most of the data is in random access memory and this does not prevent the computer from starting.
There are also many programs, but they are paid and their use will be unnecessary for such tasks. This information should be sufficient.
If something was not clear to you, then watch this video. It clearly depicts all the actions with detailed comments and you will have no questions left.
Did you manage to complete hard formatting disk?