formatting a USB drive

[Jo-Anne]

I'm using Windows SP SP3. I recently bought two 160GB external USB drives
primarily to image everything that's on my 60GB internal hard drive using
Acronis True Image. I'd like to reformat the drives to NTFS. Someone here
kindly directed me to the right place to do this, but I have a few questions
first:

Should I accept the "default" allocation unit size?
Should I leave unchecked "perform a quick format"?
Should I enable file and folder compression?

Thank you!

Jo-Anne

 

[GreenieLeBrun]

I'm using Windows SP SP3. I recently bought two 160GB external USB
drives primarily to image everything that's on my 60GB internal hard
drive using Acronis True Image. I'd like to reformat the drives to
NTFS. Someone here kindly directed me to the right place to do this,
but I have a few questions first:

Should I accept the "default" allocation unit size?

I do.

Should I leave unchecked "perform a quick format"?

I don't.

Should I enable file and folder compression?

I don't.

 

[Jo-Anne]

Thank you! Do you mean that you do a quick format rather than the regular
one?

Jo-Anne

 

[Bjarke Andersen]

Thank you! Do you mean that you do a quick format rather than the
regular one?

Depends if you are in a hurry. Quick Format will take about 5 seconds,
while a full format can take an hour or more, depending on the size of
partition.

 

[Jo-Anne]

Thank you, Bjarke! Is a quick format actually a conversion from one system
(FAT32) to another (NTFS) rather than an actual formatting? What I want to
do is format the drive in a way that will lock out bad sectors (if that's
the right terminology; I'm thinking back to formatting floppies in the old
days)...

Jo-Anne

 

[GreenieLeBrun]

Thank you! Do you mean that you do a quick format rather than the
regular one?

Jo-Anne

I usually do a full format unless I am pressed for time.

 

[Bjarke Andersen]

Thank you, Bjarke! Is a quick format actually a conversion from one
system (FAT32) to another (NTFS) rather than an actual formatting?
What I want to do is format the drive in a way that will lock out bad
sectors (if that's the right terminology; I'm thinking back to
formatting floppies in the old days)...

No, quick format simply rewrites the first part of the partition table, so
the old stored data would seem to be corrupt. In other words data is still
there, but the drive looks empty.

With a full format every data is being overwritten.

You can use format to change filesystem (NTFS, FAT32) but with the expense
of loosing the stored data.

Regarding locking out bad sectors, if you have a bad sector on a harddrive
then look for another drive. Today, bad sectors are often dirt, scratches
or mechanical error and only a matter of time when the whole drive will
fail.

 

[Jo-Anne]

Thank you!

Jo-Anne

I usually do a full format unless I am pressed for time.

 

[Jo-Anne]

Thank you again! That is very helpful.

Jo-Anne

No, quick format simply rewrites the first part of the partition table, so
the old stored data would seem to be corrupt. In other words data is still
there, but the drive looks empty.

With a full format every data is being overwritten.

You can use format to change filesystem (NTFS, FAT32) but with the expense
of loosing the stored data.

Regarding locking out bad sectors, if you have a bad sector on a harddrive
then look for another drive. Today, bad sectors are often dirt, scratches
or mechanical error and only a matter of time when the whole drive will
fail.

 

[Lil' Dave]

I'm using Windows SP SP3. I recently bought two 160GB external USB drives
primarily to image everything that's on my 60GB internal hard drive using
Acronis True Image. I'd like to reformat the drives to NTFS. Someone here
kindly directed me to the right place to do this, but I have a few
questions first:

Should I accept the "default" allocation unit size?
Yes.

Should I leave unchecked "perform a quick format"?

No, a quick format does not check the physical hard disk for read/write
capability, it assumes all is good for the partition file data area. Don't
assume.

Should I enable file and folder compression?

No.

 

[Jo-Anne]

Thank you, Dave! I'll start the formatting shortly.

Jo-Anne

 

[Ian D]

No, quick format simply rewrites the first part of the partition table, so
the old stored data would seem to be corrupt. In other words data is still
there, but the drive looks empty.

With a full format every data is being overwritten.

You can use format to change filesystem (NTFS, FAT32) but with the expense
of loosing the stored data.

Regarding locking out bad sectors, if you have a bad sector on a harddrive
then look for another drive. Today, bad sectors are often dirt, scratches
or mechanical error and only a matter of time when the whole drive will
fail.

Full formatting a drive does not overwrite any data. It just reads the
entire contents of the drive to find any faulty sectors. That's why
a drive that's been formatted can be unformatted by an unformatting
utility, providing nothing has been written to the drive in the interim.

 

[Jo-Anne]

Thank you, Ian! I had no idea one could unformat as well as formatting.

Jo-Anne

 

[Ian D]

Thank you, Ian! I had no idea one could unformat as well as formatting.

Jo-Anne

It's done to recover from an accidental formatting, provided
nothing has been written to the drive after the format. There
are third party utilities that do this. It's not available in
Windows.

 

[Jo-Anne]

Thanks again, Ian! I'll remember that!

Jo-Anne

It's done to recover from an accidental formatting, provided
nothing has been written to the drive after the format. There
are third party utilities that do this. It's not available in
Windows.