I have done a low level full format with the Maxtor CD that came with my HDD. Now I am installing Vista Ultimate Full, when I used to put XP Pro on it gave me the option to full format or quick format. In Vista there is a format but it does it really fast in like 2 minutes, which means it has to be a quick format, mainly because I have a 250GB drive.

So how do I do a full format in Vista?

Thank You,

Jesse

Normally a low level format is something you would only do as an attempt to repair bad clusters and such if I remember right.
If so is this a case of incorrect syntax being used here?

Anyway, the only difference with a full format and a quick format is that in quick format the system simply flags out the information on the clusters and says it's a 0 or a 1 depending on what it was before. Rather than writing over the cluster with a new nonsensical bit pattern. So doing a full format is pointless if you'd already formatted the hard drive with a third party tool, as all data would be wiped anyway. So when it quick formats it's just flagging the formatted clusters anyway since you've already formatted them into nothing.
(correct me if I'm wrong been a while since I described each one:P)

But I would guess you can boot into Vista's command line mode, setup partitions and from there and then run the format command and choose the switch to do a full format. Having never bothered with the command line option on the DVD I can only give you an educated guess.

WHAT
I have the same problem in xp i have done lots of formats and they usually take ages but for some reason on vista (boot from dvd) it takes about 1 minute
something is amiss.
infact you get the impression you are still in windows with vista.

How would you format windows Vista with it already on your computer without the os disc

Nothing is amiss. Windows Vista simply performs a quick format whereas by default formatting in XP is a standard format. What's hard to understand about that. Next time you get a large hard drive partition in XP check the quick format box and see how fast it does it.

Is there any downside to merely quick formatting instead of standard formatting before Vista installation?

Not really. As I explained above. All hard drive are low level formatted at the factory which allow (this is a simple explanation btw) us to use a partitioning program to create our partitions in the format we want (FAT, NTFS,EXT, HPFS etcetera).

When a format program is run to write out the file system allocation table it simply writes the bits as a 1 or 0 in random patterns. A quick format does the same but says that all bit's that equal 1 will be 1 and all that equal 0 will be 1.

It does this by simply flagging the 1 or 0 and then writes the new bit over it. In theory and practice it is possible to retrieve the data, but it is not as easy as people make out, especially if you keep moving large amounts of data around.

So really there is no downside to a quick format at all, it's just quicker (bonus) but if your a security freak you'd be performing a government wipe all the time.