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Hi. I'm a computer technician. I know it's better to do a "normal format" on a new hard disk. But partition-format softwares like "Partition Magic" or "Partition Expert" do formats in a few seconds (so certainly a "fast format"). Do you think it's not good -in long term- (because in short term i never saw problems) to start to format a new hard disk drive with Partition Expert or Magic? Thanks!
Use the software that comes with the hard drive...that's why it's included.
If you don't have the floppy, go to the manufacturer's website & download the software...keep it handy for future use.
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the issue is the difference between fast and normal format. What you use to do it makes absolutly no difference short term or long term. Least not in my yrs building pcs and servers have I seen a difference. I have used every version of Dos since 3.3 and all the "utilities" that have been around since then.
Now quick format only redoes the fat tables. A full does that and the data section.
So when would you use either? I figure full on a new drive and quick format there after unless I am concerned about the platters. Running scandisk /through, chkdsk /f, or using a disk check utility like Norton Disk Doctor will confirm the health of the drive.
I always had PM take longer then a regular format. I always figured it was doing like Norton does with a through write read test.
If how you format or what you use mattered then what about when you Ghost/Drive Image a drive? Ghost doesn't format the drive. It just writes data in all the correct places after doing some calculations/modifications [like when you expand to use the whole new drive]
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I always do a full format on new and fairly old drives. A full format will check for flakey sectors and reassign them. Also, I believe it doesn't hurt to re-magnetize the bits on the platters to increase their strength.
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everytime data is written the cluster is remagnitized. the write heads don't magnitize any differently when formatting vs writing data. Ghost vs format point I made above.
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Wanderer, if what you say is true, it would seem that we should `never' have to do a full format, even on a new drive.
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On second thought, I guess I would do a full format on a new drive anyway, just in case the manufacturer missed any flakey sectors.
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Writing data doesn't remagnetize the disk, it changes the polarity in the magnetized media from N/S=0 to E/W=1. This is how you get the binaries to disk.
Since not all molecules in the area reserved for a specific bit are polarized, and the older the media is, the fewer, it can be a good idea to full format sometime or wipe the disk to restore the polarization.Nigel
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 help on updating the bios...
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cel333 to p2-450
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