Formatting bad for disk?

salami1212 · 20 Sep 2006 at 21:09

is formatting bad for your hard disk?

and also, whats the differnece between formatting and reformatting?
Cheers

probedb · 20 Sep 2006 at 21:11

Nope.

Reformatting is formatting, the 're' in front of a word normally means doing it again

salami1212 · 20 Sep 2006 at 21:23

what happens if you do it a lot, sureley you must lose data and it wears it down

Gas Panic! · 20 Sep 2006 at 21:31

Formatting of any sort results in data loss, that's the whole idea!

salami1212 · 20 Sep 2006 at 21:49

i meant you would lose some of the hard disk space surely

semi-pro waster · 20 Sep 2006 at 22:02

Formatting could be said to be bad in that you are stressing the drive more because you are working it but the effects will be minimal unless you are doing it every day repeatedly.

You don't lose any hard drive space by formatting unless there are bad sectors but then that isn't directly the fault of the formatting.

keogh · 20 Sep 2006 at 22:14

Well I hope it isn't, cos I format my HDD a minimum of every 3 months... been formatting virtually everyday recently with chopping and changing from XP back to Vista RC1 etc... good fun though

Gas Panic! · 20 Sep 2006 at 22:27

keogh said:
Well I hope it isn't, cos I format my HDD a minimum of every 3 months... been formatting virtually everyday recently with chopping and changing from XP back to Vista RC1 etc... good fun though

Do you also find stabbing yourself in the eyes with pencils fun?

ByteJuggler · 21 Sep 2006 at 01:54

keogh said:
Well I hope it isn't, cos I format my HDD a minimum of every 3 months... been formatting virtually everyday recently with chopping and changing from XP back to Vista RC1 etc... good fun though

On modern drives, formatting a drive is not really much different to just writing to the drive. Basically just overwriting it either with blank space (BIOS) or a filesystem (from the OS.) (In the olden days a so-called "physical" format would include the process for actually laying down the tracks and sectors and so-on on the magnetic media. These days drives are generally never physically formatted outside the factory and trying to/doing so would probably destroy a drive, if its even possible.)

Anyway, I wouldn't worry if I was you. (but, do use the "quick format" option, if only to save your own sanity.)

keogh · 21 Sep 2006 at 09:49

Rivey said:
Do you also find stabbing yourself in the eyes with pencils fun?

Hmm not done it for years now, I'll give that a go later cos I do remember enjoying it. Thanks for reminding me Rivey!

ByteJuggler said:
On modern drives, formatting a drive is not really much different to just writing to the drive. Basically just overwriting it either with blank space (BIOS) or a filesystem (from the OS.) (In the olden days a so-called "physical" format would include the process for actually laying down the tracks and sectors and so-on on the magnetic media. These days drives are generally never physically formatted outside the factory and trying to/doing so would probably destroy a drive, if its even possible.)

Anyway, I wouldn't worry if I was you. (but, do use the "quick format" option, if only to save your own sanity.) </QUOTE]

The only reason I format so often is cos im a very tidy person. I always feel like after a while my HDD is getting really messy and needs a good clean. I won't even install software to try because I know ill have to uninstall it and that will leave bit on my HDD/registry and it will start to feel messy to me.

ANd I love the feeling after you have formatted, and windowns boots for the first time and its all clean. Then start installing your software, and defrag after each big installtion to keep the HDD trim. Done it so many times now I don;t mind the process

squiffy · 21 Sep 2006 at 09:55

salami1212 said:
is formatting bad for your hard disk?

and also, whats the differnece between formatting and reformatting?
Cheers

http://computer.howstuffworks.com/hard-disk.htm

Gas Panic! · 21 Sep 2006 at 10:10

keogh said:
Hmm not done it for years now, I'll give that a go later cos I

The only reason I format so often is cos im a very tidy person. I always feel like after a while my HDD is getting really messy and needs a good clean. I won't even install software to try because I know ill have to uninstall it and that will leave bit on my HDD/registry and it will start to feel messy to me.

ANd I love the feeling after you have formatted, and windowns boots for the first time and its all clean. Then start installing your software, and defrag after each big installtion to keep the HDD trim. Done it so many times now I don;t mind the process

Haha.

In all seriousness, though, I have a format coming up soon (new CPU hopefully!) and I'm actually quite looking forward to getting a more responsive PC, and one that doesn't have Norton (BURN IT!) installed.