Format a new drive

Craig321 · 13 Jul 2007 at 22:03

Hi,

I'm getting my new PC on the 17th July which will include a new 500gb WDAAKS, I'm just wondering if I should full format the drive before putting XP on it?

Thanks,
Craig.

fobose · 13 Jul 2007 at 22:33

I would, best to on a new drive, even tho it will take ages

Deluxe1 · 13 Jul 2007 at 23:19

Ive always just done a fast format on all the drives ive ever owned.

Craig321 · 14 Jul 2007 at 21:40

Ok, I guess I'll have to torture myself waiting for it then

Craig.

fobose · 14 Jul 2007 at 22:15

Put the drive in your old PC doing a full format whilst your building your new one?

Might save you a lot of time hehe

Craig321 · 15 Jul 2007 at 00:26

fobose said:
Put the drive in your old PC doing a full format whilst your building your new one? Might save you a lot of time hehe

Quite a good idea, but my current PC has a semi-dodgy SATA controller and only SATA150 so it might be a bit of a hassle.

Might just stick with a quick format, surely a factory hard drive is as formatted as you'll get?

Craig.

fobose · 15 Jul 2007 at 00:36

It doesn't matter if its SATA 150 controller, I am using 2 seagate 7200.9 SATA 300 drives on my Intel ICH5R controller with no problem (which is SATA150).

If you currently have a SATA drive in your old PC, you should only need to turn it off, plug it in and it should work fine - when you get to windows you will need to use disk management to format it.

All new "factory" drives are not formatted, they just say raw data.

<edit> *spelling corrections

Craig321 · 15 Jul 2007 at 00:47

Cool, thanks.

Maybe I'll do that then

Or if I don't I'll build the PC, have cake/tea etc. while it's formatting (the PC is kind of a birthday present which I've paid most towards

)