Fastest NTFS Full Format?

oHUTCHYo · 3 Apr 2011 at 16:31

I have 2x 1TB Western Digital Passport drives which I have been using in FAT32 with my PS3. I've now made the move to a WDTV so would prefer NTFS.

When I originally formatted to FAT32, I found a piece of software which did it in literally a minute.

I'm using Windows 7 to format both drives to NTFS with 8KB clusters. I started the first one at 8.30 this morning and its only 3/4 complete at 16.30pm.

Is there a quicker method for a FAT32 to NTFS format outside of 'Windoze'?

DragonQ · 3 Apr 2011 at 16:43

Yeah, use a Quick Format.

Stonedofmoo · 3 Apr 2011 at 17:00

DragonQ said:
Yeah, use a Quick Format.

This. If you do a 'full' format you can expect it to take a loooong time.

oHUTCHYo · 3 Apr 2011 at 17:26

...I didnt think a quick-format actually chnaged the file system though? I always imagined it was just glorified 'delete everything' tool

FoxEye · 3 Apr 2011 at 17:37

Quick format creates a new file system (which over-writes old one).

You can use a quick format after deleting all partitions and re-creating them, which you wouldn't be able to do if it was just a "delete all" command

oHUTCHYo · 3 Apr 2011 at 17:39

..god damn. Just cancelled the one thats been running since 8.30am, quick-format did the trick in 1min.

Thanks guys

Supernaut91 · 3 Apr 2011 at 19:35

can anyone explain the advantages of a full format as opposed to a quick format? Always wondered.

Emlyn_Dewar · 3 Apr 2011 at 20:13

Full format scans the disk for bad sectors also, not sure what else it does, if anything...

FoxEye · 3 Apr 2011 at 20:30

Emlyn_Dewar said:
Full format scans the disk for bad sectors also, not sure what else it does, if anything...

Exactly what the full format does depends which version of windows you're running

Supernaut91 · 3 Apr 2011 at 22:44

Thanks for clearing that up guys!

Ch3m1c4L · 4 Apr 2011 at 13:35

Windows can also convert a FAT32 to NTFS while retaining all the data, although this does take some time, but saves on copying data around manually so can sometimes be faster. It uses the command line, took like 3 hours on a 750gb USB drive that seems to have disappeared from my possession

AbsenceJam · 5 Apr 2011 at 00:44

Emlyn_Dewar said:
Full format scans the disk for bad sectors also, not sure what else it does, if anything...

Vista onwards it writes zeros to the partition you're formatting, which should flag up any bad sectors also but I'm not sure if it gives direct feedback about them not having done this myself (if I'm zero'ing a drive it do the whole disk, not on a partition level)..