Fresh install of Windows 7, format advise.

[Damien.]

As the title says basically.

I am looking at doing a fresh install of Windows 7. I know the basics but Id like to know how to ensure my hard drive is formatted correctly, IE; not just a quick format carried out by the W7 install wizard.

 

[muon]

What type of drive is it? If it is an SSD, I would let Windows 7 handle it.

If its an SSD without TRIM, then you should do the relevant format which restores it to full performance first.

For all other drives, I can't imagine there being any difference. However, if you want to do some partitioning and be able to control where the partitions are on the physical drive, then you may want to do that with GParted.

 

[FoxEye]

What exactly is wrong with a quick format?

 

[Philtor]

What exactly is wrong with a quick format?

The only real difference between a quick format and a full format is that a full format will check for bad sectors at the same time and obviously takes much longer. I would only tend to use a full format on a brand new drive personally.

 

[Damien.]

Thanks for the advise guys but I carried out a full format using a programme called Boot and Nuke. A really good piece of software actually, took a few hours but checked my HDD for bad sectors etc.