Disk Formatting As Fast As Possible
Techquickie
·Techquickie
·2016-05-06
·
973 words · ~4 min read
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There's nothing like starting off with a clean slate. Whether it's a new car
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right off the lot, fresh sheets in your hotel room bed, or a pardon from the
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state governor for your 14th speeding ticket. But your driving record isn't
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the only thing that could use a fresh scrubbing. Reformatting the storage
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drive in your computer or mobile device could make your life easier as well. But
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what exactly is formatting? Well, just like a database is kind of useless
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unless it has some sort of system for organizing all of your data, a disc
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isn't very useful unless it has a file system where it can tell your computer
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where everything is physically located on the drive. When you format your hard
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drive, SSD, USB stick, or whatever else, the disc is first partitioned, meaning
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that the disc is given a beginning and an end to mark the areas where the
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operating system can access it. Then a file system is placed onto the disc to
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allow it to organize its contents. Usually NTFS for Windows drive or FAT32
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or XFAT for a removable flash drive. But formatting does more than just prepare a
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disc for use. If there was anything on the disc before formatting, it gets
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erased during the formatting process. Because formatting involves erasing the
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tables that give locations to all of the files on the disc, meaning your
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operating system will see all the previous data as free space that can be
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overwritten. And although this is obviously a problem for people who want
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to reformat a disc because it isn't working properly, but would also like to
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keep the data, it also means that reformatting is a great way to
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completely nuke a drive really quickly. Often times, this is done when a
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computer is infected by particularly determined malware, which is difficult
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to remove with anti-malware applications and can leave lasting damage to crucial
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operating system files, even if you do manage to get rid of it. By formatting
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an infected drive, you nullify its ability to execute any malicious code.
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And since formatting erases the boot sector that tells your PC to load up
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your operating system, it's also a great way to defeat the more exotic viruses
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that infect the boot sector directly, which can give you a truckload of
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problems. Formatting is also a good way to remove pre-installed software from a
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computer you bought off the shelf. often referred to as bloatware since it tends
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to hog up system resources and often provide questionable at best utility.
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Bloatware can be difficult to remove completely. So many people who purchase
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pre-built PCs, especially laptops, like to format the included drive right out
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of the box and do a clean operating system install. And if you're suffering
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from Windows bloating, where Windows just kind of piles up background
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processes and registry errors over time, formatting can serve a useful method for
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spring cleaning. Do keep in mind however that formatting does have some
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limitations. Doing it to permanently erase data beyond recovery is just a bad
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idea as formatting doesn't obliterate this data. It just marks it as free
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space and it can be overwritten later on and can still be recovered by using
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third-party software. There's a bunch of them out there. So using an overwrite
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utility such as DBAN or Derek's boot is just a much better idea. Formatting also
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won't help you if the problem you're having lies within your PC somewhere
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else, such as in the case of a super corrupted BIOS or a terrible virus that
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gets into your freaking firmware. And while fir formatting can give you a
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clean slate to work off of, it doesn't make your drive like new. Though a full
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format in Windows can check your drive for bad sectors to at least tell you
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whether or not you might need a whole new disc drive to solve your problems.
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But formatting, like we said earlier, remains a very valuable tool if you're
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drowning in malware or bloatware or whatever. Just remember it is a bit of a
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nuclear option. So don't push the red button unless you're sure it's okay to
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