Tek-Tips is the largest IT community on the Internet today!

Members share and learn making Tek-Tips Forums the best source of peer-reviewed technical information on the Internet!

  • Congratulations Mike Lewis on being selected by the Tek-Tips community for having the most helpful posts in the forums last week. Way to Go!

Windows Clean Install

Status
Not open for further replies.

Carlos82

Technical User
May 7, 2007
65
US
When doing a Windows XP clean install, whats the difference between Disk Formatting (Quick) or just disk formating. Which one should you choose? Thanks Guys
 
i believe that a quick format is just as suggested, and only prepares the disk for file system in a limited way, whereas a full format includes full surface scan and error check.
thats what i was told, but a techy will probably correct me there, anyway i always prefer the full format (atleast for peace of mind)
 
Progenic7 is correct. A quick format writes the Master Boot Record and initialises the file system. A full format reads every sector and marks it as bad if the read fails. Then it writes the MBR and initialises the file system. Neither erase any data, which is a common mistaken assumption made.

If you are confident the disk is good, a quick format is quite sufficient.

[navy]When I married "Miss Right" I didn't realise her first name was 'always'. LOL[/navy]
 
Status
Not open for further replies.

Part and Inventory Search

Sponsor

Back
Top