Formatting HDD - always necessary?

TheBigCheese

TheBigCheese

TheBigCheese

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Hi guys

I've just bought a couple of OCUKs finest WD 2TB drives, based on previous experience they take an age (around 24 hours I think) to format in Windows.

It's something I've always done with new HDDs but as technology has moved on, is it still essential to run a full format on a new drive if it's just a data storage drive?

If so is there any other software rather than Windows 7 disk management to speed up the process?


I did search the forums but couldn't find anything similiar...as you can imagine searching for formatting brings up rather a lot of replies!

Thanks in advance for any replies! :)
 
Thanks for the quick reply :D

I know the full format picks up on bad sectors etc., is Windows clever enough to tell me if it encounters any errors?

The packaging they came in today was rather less than I would have liked so I am a bit worried (and impatient).


Cheers :)
 
Full format checks the disk in addition but I'd recommend using HDTune or the manufacturer utility anyway. Your OS picks up errors but only when it encounters a sector it can't read or write to.
 
Thanks, that's a really good idea.

I've looked on Western Digitals website, but all I can find is backup/cloning software...do you know if they produce drive checking software?
 
I did a full format on a western digital black 640gb last night and it took just over an hour so where the 24 hour thing comes from I've no idea.

If it's an OS drive I like to do a full format every now and then if it's just storage quick format seems fine.
 
C64 said:
I did a full format on a western digital black 640gb last night and it took just over an hour so where the 24 hour thing comes from I've no idea.

If it's an OS drive I like to do a full format every now and then if it's just storage quick format seems fine.
Click to expand...

I think yours would have taken more like 2 hours. A 2TB 5400rpm disk will take 6-7, it's a long time to be waiting.
 
Did a full format on a 2TB Samsung F3 on Monday and it took approx 6 hours, so no idea where this 24 hours is coming from.

I personally think at least on new drives a full format is a good idea, I also do a full surface scan from DOS before that. At the end of the day, although it takes a while, if you are not in any rush you might as well. After that quick formats are fine.

Hard Disk Sentinel is a good bit of software to run in the background, I use it on my storage server and it has twice warned me of failing drives before they went.
 
Speed said:
Did a full format on a 2TB Samsung F3 on Monday and it took approx 6 hours, so no idea where this 24 hours is coming from.

I personally think at least on new drives a full format is a good idea, I also do a full surface scan from DOS before that. At the end of the day, although it takes a while, if you are not in any rush you might as well. After that quick formats are fine.

Hard Disk Sentinel is a good bit of software to run in the background, I use it on my storage server and it has twice warned me of failing drives before they went.
Click to expand...

A surface scan and then full format is just doing the same thing twice.

----

I still think people fail to understand that a full format is nothing special. From Vista it writes zeros to the partition (I guess you can never zero the whole drive because the MFT will always e there) and before Vista it just did chkdsk. Both will achieve the same thing as far as errors are concerned and neither has an advantage over just a quick format and a check with any software out there.
 
True yes, but one was done from DOS using Samsungs own testing software. Where as the other is done through Windows. I'm fully aware they do basically the same thing, but at the end of the day I'd rather be certain the drive is fully functional before I start loading it with data. It was done over night, so it isn't any hassle, the PC is on 24/7 regardless.
 
Thanks for the posts guys it's appreciated!

Thanks for the link PiKe, I've no idea how I missed that.

I've got a couple of confusing problems having loaded the Lifeguard tools and I'm not sure what to do from here.

The drives I was formatting are OK but another drive I have has an issue.

I should note that I have a lot of drives in this machine, it's used for all sorts including HD video editing.

The problem I have is with a Western Digital 2TB 7200rpm - this drive.

They are all plugged into a Gigabyte Ex58-UD5 motherboard which seems to have two sets of SATA controllers which I hope isn't causing any issues.

What I don't understand is:
Why is the SATA drive showing as SCSI?
Why are only eight selectable drives showing up in the lifeguard tools, when the bottom panel shows nine drives?
Is that drive knackered?


The drive in question is showing this:
wdscreengrabedited.jpg


Running a quick test comes out OK though
quicktestresults.jpg


But the properties of the drive doesn't look good:
driveproperties.jpg



I'm open to any suggestions and really hoping it's not an RMA job. :(
 
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Personally I don't like the Windows version of any manufacturers testing software, had Windows conflict issues in the past. You could always download, burn and boot from the DOS CD image.

http://support.wdc.com/product/download.asp?groupid=613&sid=30&lang=en

Also, if you can swap it with a working drive to see if it is the cable or port it is connected to causing the problem.

To clarify this is an older 2TB drive, not one of the new ones you've purchased?
 
Thanks for the quick reply :)

Yes it's been swapped earlier today so definitely not the cable or power supply.

It's not one of the drives I was talking about formatting at the start of the thread, but it is a new drive, bought from OCUK a few days ago (I've had a bit of an HDD splurge!).
 
If possible try it in another computer and see what the WD utility says. If it is still showing as b0rked, might have to RMA!
 
Thanks for the replies guys.

I'm going to run the boot drive check overnight and see what the results are in the morning, if it's like the Windows version it will take about 4.5 hours to complete.

It's pretty well tangled up in with all the other drives but I can take it out if I have to (why oh why did Antec make their 1200 case have so many screws?!?)...the other machine I can try it in is a laptop with Vista on it (XP won't recognise the full size of it if I understand correctly)...if I connect it up by eSata will all the tests etc. still run as normal as it's an external drive?


Cheers :)
 
Uh oh...
nowwhat.jpg


What does that mean?

I really don't understand this...it's a SATA drive that it thinks is a SCSI drive and won't support it properly...

I don't know whether this is important or not but on the lifeguard screen in Windows when I click properties on the drives numbered 1-8 (see above screenshot) they are assigned as different types...
1 (the problem drive) - RAID
2 - RAID
3 - RAID
4 - SATA
5 - IDE
6 - SATA
7 - SATA
8 - SATA

I hope someone can make sense of it!
 
Very odd! :confused:

Maybe unplug all the other drives and put it on SATA1? No need to remove it ofc, just unplug power to all the other drives and switch the SATA cables.

Try it in another system if that doesn't work?

If it is happening using the BIOS version that would imply some issue with the motherboard setup (hence my first suggestion) or the drive.
 
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I reckon it's on the second set of sata controller, which isn't quite as integrated as the normal intel one.

Try switching the port it's connected to, should work ok.


Personally, I like to do a full format on brand new drives. After that, quick format, everytime
 
Thanks for the posts guys.

To be honest I've no idea which SATA port it's connected to anymore, I'll do as you suggest and unplug everything except that and the boot drive and see how it goes.

Do you have any suggestions and to what I should plug where? From what I've been told elsewhere:
SSD should be on SATA blue - 0
DVD drive should be on SATA blue - 5 or one of the white connectors.

Any other thoughts?

Cheers
 
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