To Format or Quick Format ?
Wednesday, August 20, 2008
Long ago I had an amazing computer hardware lecture session, at the end of which the tutor failed to answer one simple question I had asked - "What is the difference between format and quick format option ?"
Now Google has helped me find the answer to that same question. Do you want to know too? Then read on.
The difference lies in checking the disk for bad sectors which is not performed in a quick format. But in a normal format, the majority of the time is consumed by the process of scanning bad sectors.
So perform a quick format when you are sure that your hard disk is devoid of bad sectors. Otherwise if data is written on bad sectors, you will soon suffer data loss.
Source
Under
Inside your PC
Thanks for the post...
two quick questions..
1. what does the machine do if it found a bad sector during normal format ?
2.The provided Microsoft page is about the format during OS install. what about the formatting after OS installation (by using Disk Management or drive right click--> Format? Any difference ?
Bad sector means physical damage, which is mostly permanent.
When the machine encounters a bad sector, it tells the disk controller to mark it as bad sector internally. They are skipped later during read/write cycles.
Nowadays hard disks have extra sectors. the address of bad sectors are mapped to these extra sectors as long as they are available.
AFAIK there is no difference b/w the 2 formats.