Windows XO Pro Setup....

[Guest]

they other i installed windows xp pro and during installation the setup ask
me to format my harddrive 1st. now my question is what is the difference
between the"Quick Hard Drive Reformat" and "Full Hard Drive Reformat" options

now i had to install windows couple of times and sometimes i worry that
reformatting my harddrive will damage it. is this possible?

 

[Galen]

In william had this to say:

My reply is at the bottom of your sent message:

they other i installed windows xp pro and during installation the
setup ask me to format my harddrive 1st. now my question is what is
the difference between the"Quick Hard Drive Reformat" and "Full Hard
Drive Reformat" options

now i had to install windows couple of times and sometimes i worry
that reformatting my harddrive will damage it. is this possible?

Quick just resets everything.
Full deletes everything.
Not likely, the read/write cycles are probably already calculated into the
drive's life expectancy. You'll get your hours with today's hardware.

--
Galen - MS MVP - Windows (Shell/User & IE)
http://dts-l.org/
http://kgiii.info/

"We approached the case, you remember, with an absolutely blank mind,
which is always an advantage. We had formed no theories. We were simply
there to observe and to draw inferences from our observations." -
Sherlock Holmes

 

[Dave Harry]

I believe the following is true.

A regular, full format also verifies the physical magnetic state of each
sector, and marks them bad if required.
A quick format just writes the file tables / index and assumes the hard disk
is in good physical condition.