Formatting, differences between quick and full formatting. How to format a hard drive

To format a drive through Windows Explorer, starting with Windows 7, you can choose two options - quick (clearing the table of contents) and full formatting:

However, it is not clear what the differences are between them - let's figure it out. First, let's define the formatting:

Formatting is a process that involves creating the main boot entry with a table of sections and (or) structures empty file system, installing the boot sector and similar actions, the result of which is the ability to use the media in operating system for storing programs and data.

As you can see, there is not a word about deleting data - in fact, formatting only allows the system to work correctly with the disk and the information on it. An example of formatting without deleting data is changing the file system from HFS+ to APFS when iOS firmware 10.3 - the file system has changed, but all the data remains in place. But this is rather an exception - usually the formatting process means clearing the disk of data.

Now that we understand the concept itself, let's move on to the types of formatting.

Quick formatting

As the name suggests, it happens quickly - even multi-terabyte hard disks formatted in just a few seconds. However, in in this case data is not deleted as such - it is written to the drive boot sector and the file system table is empty and the disk space is marked as unused.

The advantages of this approach are clear - time is saved, but there are also disadvantages:

1. Files are not deleted, so after them quick formatting(in case of hard drive, we’ll talk about SSD later) can be restored (partially or completely) using special programs. So if you are planning to give your disk to someone, quick formatting is not the best option.

2.Quick formatting does not check the status of the drive, and if there were any bad sectors- they will remain, which in the future may lead to loss of data and (or) incorrect operation drive.

Full formatting

A full format not only writes the boot sector and an empty file system table, but also writes zeros to all sectors of the disk. In addition, all sectors of the disk are checked, and bad sectors are marked in a special way and are not subsequently used to write data, so after full formatting The disk capacity may decrease slightly. Since you essentially need to fill the entire disk with zeros, the full formatting process takes a very long time, especially on hard drives(for a terabyte disk it can take up to 2-3 hours).

The advantages of this approach are that the data will be impossible to recover, so after complete formatting the drive can be safely given to another person. The disk is also checked for errors, which allows you to avoid problems with its use in the future. The only downside is probably the time spent on formatting - full formatting takes two to three orders of magnitude longer than quick formatting.

Formatting an SSD

In case of SSD system formats disks differently - for quick formatting, the TRIM command is used: when used, the SSD controller erases all data on the drive and recreates the list of sectors. That is for SSD fast Formatting essentially does the same thing as full formatting for an HDD. Therefore, when you quickly format an SSD, you can forget about data recovery.

Performing a full format of the SSD, firstly, becomes unnecessary (since a quick format will erase everything anyway), and secondly, it can even harm the SSD - it will work slower. This is due to the fact that the principles HDD operation and SSDs are very different: in the case of the latter, writing zeros to all cells will mean that the cells are not empty - they are occupied by zeros. And in order to subsequently write something to these cells, the SSD controller will have to not write new information to them, but overwrite it (that is, first remove zeros and then write new information) - this greatly reduces the speed SSD operation, sometimes even up to normal speeds hard drives.

Which formatting type to choose

As a result, you can create a simple algorithm: if only you use the drive, and it works without failures, use quick formatting. If the drive fails, or you want to give it to another person, use full formatting (with the exception of SSDs - for that, in any case, use only quick formatting).

To format a drive through Windows Explorer, starting with Windows 7, you can choose two options - quick (clearing the table of contents) and full formatting:

At the same time, it is not clear what the differences are between them - let's figure it out. First, the definition of formatting:

Formatting is a process that involves creatingmaster boot record with partition tableand/or structures are emptyfile system, installationboot sectorand similar actions, the result of which is the ability to use the media inoperating systemfor storing programs and data.

As you can see, there is not a word about deleting data - in fact, formatting only allows the system to work correctly with the disk and the information on it. An example of formatting without deleting data is changing the file system from HFS+ to APFS when installing iOS 10.3 - the file system has changed, but all the data remains in place. But this is rather an exception - usually the formatting process means clearing the disk of data.

Now that we understand the concept itself, let's move on to the types of formatting.

Quick formatting

As the name suggests, it happens quickly - even multi-terabyte hard drives are formatted in just a few seconds. However, in this case, data is not deleted as such - the boot sector and an empty file system table are written to the drive, and the disk space is marked as unused.

The advantages of this approach are clear - time is saved, but there are also disadvantages:

1. Files are not deleted, so after quick formatting (in the case of a hard drive, we’ll talk about SSDs later) they can be restored (partially or completely) using special programs. So if you are going to give your disk to someone, quick formatting is not the best option.
2. Quick formatting does not check the condition of the drive, and if there were bad sectors on it, they will remain, which in the future can lead to data loss and (or) incorrect operation of the drive.

Full formatting

A full format not only writes the boot sector and an empty file system table, but also writes zeros to all sectors of the disk. In addition, all sectors of the disk are checked, and bad sectors are marked in a special way and are not subsequently used to write data, so after full formatting, the disk volume may decrease slightly. Since you essentially need to fill the entire disk with zeros, the full formatting process takes a very long time, especially on hard drives (for a terabyte drive it can take up to 2-3 hours).

The advantages of this approach are that the data will be impossible to recover, so after a complete formatting the drive can be safely given to another person. The disk is also checked for errors, which allows you to avoid problems with its use in the future. The only downside is probably the time spent on formatting - full formatting takes two to three orders of magnitude more time than quick formatting.

In the case of SSDs, the system formats disks differently - for quick formatting, the TRIM command is used: when used, the SSD controller erases all data on the drive and recreates the list of sectors. That is, for an SSD, quick formatting does essentially the same thing as a full format for an HDD. Therefore, when you quickly format an SSD, you can forget about data recovery.

Performing a full format of the SSD, firstly, becomes unnecessary (since a quick format will erase everything anyway), and secondly, it can even harm the SSD - it will work slower. This is due to the fact that the operating principles of HDD and SSD are very different: in the case of the latter, writing zeros to all cells will mean that the cells are not empty - they are occupied by zeros. And in order to subsequently write something to these cells, the SSD controller will have to not write new information into them, but overwrite it (that is, first remove zeros and then write new information) - this greatly reduces the speed of the SSD, sometimes even to speeds regular hard disks.

Which formatting type to choose

As a result, you can create a simple algorithm: if only you use the drive, and it works without failures, use quick formatting. If the drive fails, or you want to give it to another person, use full formatting (with the exception of SSD - for it, in any case, use only quick formatting).

Hello dear readers, today I will show formatting methods and I'll tell you What is the difference between full formatting and quick formatting? I'll also show you good program for low level formatting hard drive and flash drives. I think everyone should know this in order to gain time in one moment, and in another to keep the hard drive or your flash drive healthy.

People often wonder what full and quick formatting is. . And usually when a disk or flash drive is simply formatted on a computer. But sometimes it’s not necessary full formatting which can go on for hours. Remember how much time you wasted waiting for your disk or flash drive to be formatted for a long time. But full formatting is also a necessary thing.

Full formatting of a hard drive or flash drive

Usually this formatting is done in the standard when you format the disk or flash drive, then the device is formatted by full formatting. It is needed for careful formatting so that it is impossible to restore the information, although now we have learned with full formatting, but still not all the information will be restored and this is more difficult.

Second useful point this formatting is that your disk or flash drive is checked for bad sectors and restored if any were found.

I'll give you a little advice. It's better to fix sectors special programs. In the following articles I will give instructions on how best to recover bad sectors on disks. Therefore, subscribe to updates and stay up to date with the news.

That's why of the advantages of full formatting, in that the disk or flash drive is completely erased, without possible restoration. And if there are bad sectors, it will be restored, but again, sometimes this is not a plus. Since it is better to do this with a special program.

A disadvantages in time and that the sectors may not recover well. And even if they are restored, you will not see how much was damaged and how much was restored.

Quick formatting of a hard drive or flash drive

This is very, files and folders on the media are deleted. But there is little information left for data recovery, so after this formatting you may notice that there is less free space what it should be.

Great advantage quick formatting, this time, sometimes it plays a very role.

A minuses the point is that the space is not completely freed up and if the disk or flash drive starts to work incorrectly, then it’s better standard formatting format to recover all bad sectors.

How to format?

And it’s very easy to format, you can do it yourself using a program.

We go into my computer, click right click on the disk or flash drive you want to format and click format.

A window appears in which you can select full formatting or quick formatting.

For full formatting you need to make sure that the checkbox is ticked quick format removed, but for quick formatting it’s the other way around. Selected, click format, done.

Formatting using the program will give maximum effect full formatting. To start

The archive will contain the program itself and the Russification for it. Install and launch.

It will open for you program for hard formatting disks and flash drives.

Select the device you will format. I will format the USB flash drive.

Click Continue and a window with information about the device will appear. We don't need it, go straight to the tab low level formatting.

We check at the top that this is exactly the device that we want to format. And select format the device (you can also select, if necessary, by checking the box perform a quick clean).

After completion, the program will notify you that formatting complete.

Now open my computer and check the flash drive. If it asks for formatting, then click formatting as described above and select That’s all, your flash drive will be completely formatted and disinfected.

Now you know what it is complete and quick formatting and know how to use a program that will keep your disks always healthy.

When formatting a disk, flash drive or other storage device in Windows 10, 8 and Windows 7 different ways you can select quick formatting (clearing the table of contents) or not select it, thereby performing a full formatting. At the same time, for a novice user it is usually not clear what the difference is between quick and full formatting of the drive and which one should be chosen in each specific case.

This material provides details on the difference between fast and full hard formatting disk or USB flash drives, as well as which option is best to choose depending on the situation (including formatting options for SSDs).

Note: in the article we're talking about about formatting in Windows 7 - Windows 10, some of the above nuances of full formatting work differently in XP.

Differences between quick and full disk formatting

In order to understand the difference between quick and full formatting of a drive in Windows, it is enough to know what happens in each case. Let me note right away that we are talking about formatting using built-in system tools, such as

Let's move on directly to what quick and full formatting is and what exactly happens to the disk or flash drive in each option.

• Quick formatting- in this case, the space on the drive is written to the boot sector and an empty table of the selected file system (FAT32, NTFS, ExFAT). The disk space is marked as unused without actually deleting the data on it. Quick formatting takes significantly less time (hundreds to thousands of times) than full formatting of the same drive.
• Full formatting- when a disk or flash drive is fully formatted, in addition to the above actions, zeros are also written (i.e. erased) to all sectors of the disk (starting from Windows Vista), and the drive is also checked for the presence of bad sectors; if present, they are corrected or marked accordingly to prevent writing to them in the future. It takes a really long time, especially for large HDDs.

In most cases, for normal work scenarios: quick disk cleanup for further use, at re Windows installation and in other similar situations, it is enough to use quick formatting. However, in some cases the complete one may be useful.

Quick or full formatting - which one to use and when

As noted above, it is often better and faster to use a quick format, but there may be exceptions where a full format may be preferable. The next two points when full formatting may be required are only for HDD and USB flash drives, about SSDs - immediately after this.

• If you plan to give the drive to someone and you are concerned that someone else might be able to recover data from it, it is better to perform a full format. Files can be restored quite easily after quick formatting, see, for example, .
• If you need to check the disk, or when a simple quick format (for example, when installing Windows) subsequent copying of files occurs with errors, causing speculation that the disk may contain bad sectors. However, you can manually check the disk for bad sectors, and after that use quick format: .

Formatting SSD drives

Solid state stands apart in this matter SSD drives. For them, in all cases it is better to use quick rather than full formatting:

• If you do this on a modern operating system, then the data cannot be recovered from the SSD after quick formatting (starting with Windows 7, the TRIM command is used when formatting SSDs).
• Full formatting and writing zeros can be harmful to the SSD. However, I'm not sure that Windows 10 - 7 will do this on solid state drive even if you choose full formatting (unfortunately, I couldn’t find any factual information on this issue, but there is reason to assume that this is taken into account, like many other things, see).

I conclude with this: I hope some of the readers found the information useful. If you have any questions, you can ask them in the comments to this article.