Formatting times curiosity, XP vs 7

timwinters

timwinters

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Just a curiosity...

Why does my WIN 7 machine take three to four times longer to format a drive as my WIN XP machine does?

This is true of both flash drives and external hard drives and the difference is remarkable. I'll regularly use my old XP machine to format them because it is so much quicker.
 
Maybe ya shouldn't 'ave loaded Win 7 on that 386?
 
No, Clark, I have WIN 7 loaded on my commodore 64!

Seriously, I just sat back down to my WIN 7 computer...over 2 hours later...and the 500 GB external hard drive that I use for back-up is about 50% formatted.

It would've been done long ago had I formatted it on my XP machine.
 
timwinters said:
No, Clark, I have WIN 7 loaded on my commodore 64!

Seriously, I just sat back down to my WIN 7 computer...over 2 hours later...and the 500 GB external hard drive that I use for back-up is about 50% formatted.

It would've been done long ago had I formatted it on my XP machine.
Click to expand...

Are you using a 'erase and format' setting where it does the multiple wipe of every bit?
 
Henning said:
Are you using a 'erase and format' setting where it does the multiple wipe of every bit?
Click to expand...

There is no such setting on either of my machines...at least there is no such setting when I right click on the drive and then left click "format". I uncheck "quick format" in both cases. WIN 7 takes forever, XP takes a more acceptable length of time.
 
Win 7 might be defaulting to "full format". Choose "quick format" instead.

When you choose to run a regular format on a volume, files are removed from the volume that you are formatting and the hard disk is scanned for bad sectors. The scan for bad sectors is responsible for the majority of the time that it takes to format a volume.

If you choose the Quick format option, format removes files from the partition, but does not scan the disk for bad sectors. Only use this option if your hard disk has been previously formatted and you are sure that your hard disk is not damaged.
Click to expand...

http://support.microsoft.com/?kbid=302686


It's either that, or you have a hardware problem. But given the number of people asking this same question (in the search results), I'm guessing the default behavior of 'format' changed between xp and 7.
 
Mistake Not... said:
Win 7 might be defaulting to "full format". Choose "quick format" instead.
Click to expand...

In both cases (on both machines) I'm unchecking "quick format" and doing a full format. I never do "quick formats". Really don't know why, I just don't.
 
timwinters said:
In both cases (on both machines) I'm unchecking "quick format" and doing a full format. I never do "quick formats". Really don't know why, I just don't.
Click to expand...

No real reason to use full format as the modern drives handle their own defect tracking.
 
timwinters said:
In both cases (on both machines) I'm unchecking "quick format" and doing a full format. I never do "quick formats". Really don't know why, I just don't.
Click to expand...

So it looks like Win7 has combined the 'Scan Disk' function into the full format routine where XP it was a separate function.
 
The real answer here, of course, is 'mkfs -t ext4 -m 0 /dev/sdc1'.
 
jesse said:
Keep in mind that if you do a quick format and hand the drive to someone they can easily extract the data that was there prior to the quick format.
Click to expand...

Correct, but even a full format won't prevent a determined person with the right tools. It takes a multi-pass scrub of the disk to give a high level of confidence.
 
wsuffa said:
Correct, but even a full format won't prevent a determined person with the right tools. It takes a multi-pass scrub of the disk to give a high level of confidence.
Click to expand...
Agree. With a flash based disk it'll take a fairly determined person, more determined than anyone is going to be given the data that would be on any drive I use for personal stuff.
 
Frankly, I think the industry got a bit carried away with data sanitization standards for a while. As far as I know, ATA Secure Erase is still approved by NSA and NIST for practically any type of data short of Top Secret. It's also a hell of a lot faster than DBAN and so forth. I used to use it for sanitizing clients' drives who were in the medical or financial industries all the time, and I never had one fail validation / verification.

-Rich
 
Just toss it in the microwave for 30 seconds.
 
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