I just plugged in a new hdd in my computer and used partition magic to do partitions, it did all the work in less then two minutes and make hdd ready to store data. HDD is 320GB in size so i must guess it quick formated the drive. Now the topic, is it necessary that i full format all partitions first? I read somewhere that its better to full format the new drives.

what he said

You don't have to, but if you're going to be using the disk for a couple of years, why risk unreliability by saving a couple of hours on formatting?

Yes, quick formatting can lead to problems later on if drive isn't wiped properly.

NO it is not necessary for you to do a full format on a brand new drive. A full format is a waste of time unless there is previous data on the drive.

Yes what he said. 8)

Depends on what you're trying to accomplish.

A Windows full format reads and verifies all sectors on the drive before setting up the file system structures. It does not overwrite all sectors or erase them. If it finds a sector it can't read, it maps it out as a bad sector.

A quick format just sets up the file system structures, it doesn't read & verify anything.

I'm of the philosophy that on a brand new drive, a full format is not necessary. The drive was already verified at the factory, so barring any problems in shipping, it has no bad sectors on it.

On a drive that you're reformatting that's been in use for a while, you may want to scan it for bad sectors just for peace of mind. However, there are better programs to check the drive's health than the Windows full format if that's what you're after. Manufacturer's utilities like Western Digital's Data LifeGuard Tools, Seagate's SeaTools, Maxtor's Powermax, etc., or 3rd-party hard drive analysis tools like SpinRite or OnTrack Data Advisor are all better at verifying your hard drive than the Windows full format.

On a drive that you need to erase for security purposes, to get rid of a boot-sector virus, remove a problem MBR, etc. the Windows full format won't do it. In this case you need a hard drive eraser like Active@ KillDisk or Darik's Boot and Nuke.

Because on new drives I don't see a need to full format, and on drives where the health needs to be verified I use a dedicated hard drive analysis program, and on drives that need to be erased require a dedicated program, I therefore never use the Windows full format for anything.

There can be traces of data on the drive from manufacturer testing though, so it's a good idea anyway.

Maybe i'm blind, but nowhere did I see him mention windows format utility. He said he was using partition magic. Just an observation.

true. but they're the same difference. NTFS is NTFS.

what he said
What he said about what he said

I is always a good idea to make sure a drive came through shipping and manufacturing without an error.....would suck to load it up then find it's full of corruption.....you think thats bad....try formatting a 500 through USB...OUCH!!!! but i did it....

Having used Partition Magic from version 2 to the current one, I find your statement that Partiton Magic did all its work in setting up your partitions in less than 2 minutes utterly unbelievable. Especially on a new hard drive. I think you are lying through your teeth, in fact. When PM sets up partitions on a new drive it always does a low level check for bad sectors etc. This takes a lot longer than 2 minutes even on an 80 GB 7200 RPM drive. New drives are considerably larger than 80 GB, and the bigger the drive the longer the process takes.

But, if you actually do use PM correctly, it will not only set up your partitions, it will do a low-level check error check, format and label the partitions and set up the file system you select.

In terms of why you want to do a full format, keep in mind that almost all of the hard drive manufacturers have reduced their warranty period from 3 years to 1 year. There's a good business reason (from their perspective) why they did this. You may also want to look up the large study Google did on hard drive reliability recently. Most interesting results.

At the very least, you should use the search engine in these forums to find threads dealing with formatting and hdd reliability BEFORE you start a new thread.

Forum policing?

The only difference between a full format and a quick format is that a full format runs check-disk (chkdsk) to check the new drive for bad sectors from the factory. You don't have to run a full format but every drive manufacturer that I have checked recommends to run a full format to ensure that there are no bad sectors. I always run a full format the first time that I am using a new disk. If there is already data on the disk then you can run a quick format not the other way around. Full (regular) or quick has absolutely nothing to do with any data that is on the drive. See link from Microsoft

Differences between a Quick format and a regular format during a "clean" installation of Windows XP
http://support.microsoft.com/kb/302686

Edit: SP

Ah, I was led to believe that if you quick formatted it didn't wipe all the data fully sometimes, which corrupted any new data laid down over it. Many thanks for the info and link.

Having used Partition Magic from version 2 to the current one, I find your statement that Partiton Magic did all its work in setting up your partitions in less than 2 minutes utterly unbelievable. Especially on a new hard drive. I think you are lying through your teeth, in fact. When PM sets up partitions on a new drive it always does a low level check for bad sectors etc. This takes a lot longer than 2 minutes even on an 80 GB 7200 RPM drive. New drives are considerably larger than 80 GB, and the bigger the drive the longer the process takes.

But, if you actually do use PM correctly, it will not only set up your partitions, it will do a low-level check error check, format and label the partitions and set up the file system you select.

In terms of why you want to do a full format, keep in mind that almost all of the hard drive manufacturers have reduced their warranty period from 3 years to 1 year. There's a good business reason (from their perspective) why they did this. You may also want to look up the large study Google did on hard drive reliability recently. Most interesting results.

At the very least, you should use the search engine in these forums to find threads dealing with formatting and hdd reliability BEFORE you start a new thread.

Emphasis by me.

WizardOZ - please do bare in mind that everyone who reads your post will judge you by the way you judge other people.

As far as how long PM takes to format a drive - it can be set to do a 'quick' type format just as easily as a 'full' type format. I have experienced PM finishing a format on a 250GB drive in less time than going to the kitchen and boiling a kettle (supposedly to make a cup of tea whilst waiting). Having wanted a full format I checked the switches and reformatted full. That took just over half an hour as expected. The tea and snacks were thus enjoyed in slow time.

As regards whether to format 'full' or 'quick' for a new drive - my own desire is always to do a full format on another machine as a slave drive first. Afterwards, transfer the drive to the new build and let windows setup do a quick format in the new machine, for all of the reasons that other posters have given.

Q

Having used Partition Magic from version 2 to the current one, I find your statement that Partiton Magic did all its work in setting up your partitions in less than 2 minutes utterly unbelievable. Especially on a new hard drive. I think you are lying through your teeth, in fact. When PM sets up partitions on a new drive it always does a low level check for bad sectors etc. This takes a lot longer than 2 minutes even on an 80 GB 7200 RPM drive. New drives are considerably larger than 80 GB, and the bigger the drive the longer the process takes.

But, if you actually do use PM correctly, it will not only set up your partitions, it will do a low-level check error check, format and label the partitions and set up the file system you select.

In terms of why you want to do a full format, keep in mind that almost all of the hard drive manufacturers have reduced their warranty period from 3 years to 1 year. There's a good business reason (from their perspective) why they did this. You may also want to look up the large study Google did on hard drive reliability recently. Most interesting results.

At the very least, you should use the search engine in these forums to find threads dealing with formatting and hdd reliability BEFORE you start a new thread.

Well, maybe you used different settings, partition magic came with my mobo cd so i used it and i still say that it took less then 2 yes less then 2 minutes to finish the process. I made 4 partitions and then all the work ran in batch, after it finished the process, hdds were good to store data.
Thanks guys for your posts, i still need much to learn abt hdds, i have did full format today just to be safe.

You were led astray. Both quick and full formats are the same format. The drive still has the data on it but it can't be seen. The data could be partially recovered by WinHex or other programs based on the file signatures, depending on how fragmented the drive is. If you are giving a drive away, e.g., donating a computer, then you would want do do a zero fill from the drive manufacturers drive tools. That will write zeros to the entire drive. The data can still be recovered but it would be very expensive. If you are really paranoid you can use wipe programs like the one below.

Data Shredder - Hard Drive Low Level Wipe Program, Data Eraser, Government Standard Data Erase
http://www.cbltech.co.uk/data-shredder.html

Edit: Here is another one that looks pretty good

Active@ Kill Disk Hard Drive Eraser
http://www.killdisk.com/

Yeah, thanks again for this info, very interesting stuff. I thought that every time you formatted a drive it wiped it and had to set up the addressing system again