Is a full Format of a new HDD necessary?

[ComputerGuy2006]

If you purchased a new HDD, is there an actual purpose to do a full format as opposed to a quick format?

The drive should not have any 1's set from the manufactory (and even if it did, its not like it should effect NTFS after a quick format). If giving it a quick lookover for bad sectors is the reason, wouldnt the manufactoror tools be better?

By the way, has there been any testing done of Windows Vs Dos based diagnostic tools? Seems a lot of the new "improved" dos version of these tools can only scan one HDD (so you cant set it to scan 2-3 HDD over night, or before going to work). On top of that, these tools do not seem to detect USB drives anymore...

 

[myocardia]

The 'official' answer to your question is here, although it's sorely lacking in detail: http://support.microsoft.com/?kbid=302686 The actual answer, which that page doesn't even mention, is that a quick format only erases the drives MFT (the drive's table of contents, so to speak), and a full format erases the MFT, and does a full surface scan of the drive's platters to check them for bad sectors. A full format should be done on any new hard drive, before any data is written to it. That allows the bad sectors to be deignated as bad, so they won't be used, and your data or OS install won't be corrupted. Welcome to anandtech.

 

[Rifter]

I usualy zero fill a new drive 4 or 5 times just to make sure it aint gunna kick the bucket right away after i spend a few hours installing OS's and drivers. But like above poster said do a full format at the min.

 

[Red Squirrel]

I never had issues not doing a full format. If I have time to kill I usually do a long format anyway just because I feel like it.

 

[Seven]

Full format is completely unnecessary. Even if you want to wipe the drive, then there are better ways to do this. Just use the quick format for a new drive.

 

[Emulex]

yup full format then burn for 4-5 days if the controller does not support scrubbing itself. many a seagate has thrown errors in the burn cycle then been stable for years

 

[taltamir]

Seven is wrong, a full format does not WIPE anything. As myocardia said:
A quick format deletes the MFT (list of files on the drive).
A full format deletes the MFT and tests for bad sectors...

NEITHER deletes any actual DATA from the platters.

Rifterut suggestion of Zero filling it a few times before using it is a good idea. Most often if a drive is defective, it will fail within the first week or two of use, if you stress test it, this will cause such a failure before you put data on it. Once I had lost data by using "move" to a new a drive, it failed halfway through the move and I lost 200 GB... (I was being cheap and recycling my backup temporarily, I would have ended up with backups, but to save some money I ended up not having backups DURING the transfer)

Stress testing new drives I have had several fail within stress testing, but none who survived ever failed afterwards (doesn't mean that they can't fail, you should still keep backups).

yup full format then burn for 4-5 days if the controller does not support scrubbing itself. many a seagate has thrown errors in the burn cycle then been stable for years

Full format doesn't burn in anyways, you need a full format + burn in. Burn in is done using specialized software that can write random data, or all zeroes / ones. not by repeated full formats.

 

[KeithP]

I usualy zero fill a new drive 4 or 5 times just to make sure it aint gunna kick the bucket right away after i spend a few hours installing OS's and drivers. But like above poster said do a full format at the min.

I do this as well. Try and weed out the drives that are either shipped with defects or develop defects and fail shortly after first use.

The downside is with large drives doing multiple zero write passes can take some time but I am usually not in a hurry to use the drive so that isn't an issue for me.

-KeithP

 

[a123456]

From the MS KB, since Vista+, full format does write zeros to the whole hard drive.

It's not mandatory to full format a new HDD but it might be useful as a basic stress test if you have to the time to spare.

 

[Binky]

I never do anything more than absolutely necessary with a new HD (i.e. quick format only). Laziness is my hobby. I've also never had a problem doing it this way.

 

[AlgaeEater]

I've taken a religious approach to hard drives; in which I mean if they are bound to fail then it is all pre-ordained and I couldn't help it; thus off to the RMA it goes. I always quick format a drive and just use it. If it messes up, so be it. If it doesn't, good for me. Stress testing a drive takes a while to yield accurate results. If you're talking server applications or this is a business computer; I would see why you should do a full format. (It wouldn't hurt)

Backups and "power user" should be synonymous in today's data sensitive world. I'm never afraid of loosing data as I probably have it stored in 3 other places anyway.

Just my 0.02

 

[M0RPH]

I used to do quick formats and never really had a problem. Then I bought a 1.5TB and decided to try a full format. The format failed partway through due to disk errors and I had to send the drive back.

Had I done a quick format I would only have found out the drive was bad at some later time when I tried to copy data to those bad sectors. I would have wasted time with a bad drive and potentially lost data. After that experience I've stuck to the full formats.

In fact I'm doing one right now on another 1.5TB... it's 5 hours which sucks but I'll feel better knowing that the drive has been checked.

 

[BTA]

I only ever do quick formats anymore and havn't had a problem.

If I ever get a bad drive then oh well...thats why I back my important shit up.

 

[Seven]

Seven is wrong, a full format does not WIPE anything. As myocardia said:
A quick format deletes the MFT (list of files on the drive).
A full format deletes the MFT and tests for bad sectors...

Sorry, I wasn't clear enough on this. Full or quick format does wipe the disk, but the data is recoverable.

 

[taltamir]

EDIT: The following is only correct for windows XP and earlier, read future posts for a correction about windows vista (and later) :EDIT

Sorry, I wasn't clear enough on this. Full or quick format does wipe the disk, but the data is recoverable.

no, it does NOT wipe the disk.
it:
1. Performs a quick format
2. Scans the disk for bad sector.

In no way shape or form does it wipe anything...
You are thinking of LOW LEVEL FORMAT. Which has been IMPOSSIBLE for drives to perform on their own platters for more than a decade (due to miniaturization current drives cannot low level format their own platters, today special hardware is used to do low level formatting on the platters, which are then assembled into the drive)

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Disk_formatting#Low-level_formatting_.28LLF.29_of_hard_disks

I made the same mistake until someone corrected me half a year ago.

 

[RebateMonger]

Sorry, I wasn't clear enough on this. Full or quick format does wipe the disk, but the data is recoverable.

As noted earlier, this is no longer the case with Vista or later. A full format will write zeroes acorss the entire disk. Data recovery will not be possible.

 

[taltamir]

ugh.. I guess I was somewhat wrong too:
http://support.microsoft.com/kb/941961/en-us

The format command behavior has changed in Windows Vista. By default in Windows Vista, the format command writes zeros to the whole disk when a full format is performed. In Windows XP and in earlier versions of the Windows operating system, the format command does not write zeros to the whole disk when a full format is performed.

Ok so:
1. Low level format is impossible with modern drives.
2. Full format will write zeroes in windows vista (presumably in win7 too), it will NOT write zeroes in WinXP. In winXP it works as I described in previous posts (aka, perform a quick format + test)
3. If it writes zeroes to all sectors, NO DATA IS RECOVERABLE! (some theoretical physicists wrote about how it is theoretically possible, 1. I disagree with their theory. 2. It is not within the capability of human technology today or in the next 100 years even to do so)

Furthermore, writing zeroes to all sectors DOES work to "stress test" the drive.

 

[RebateMonger]

ugh.. I guess I was somewhat wrong too:
http://support.microsoft.com/kb/941961/en-us

A lot of us missed this important change. I only found out about it on these Forums a few months ago, since I seldom do full formats.