does formatting DEFRAG a HD?

for eight years now, i believed that reformatting a hard drive, defrags it at the same time since there is no data to defrag, hence, the defrag is complete.

am i right or wrong? how about QUICK format?


also, why doesn't vista have a built in visual defragger or analyzer so i can see how bad it needs to be defrag?

 

Formating a computer means marking all the data as "available". Most of the time, it doesn't actually erase the data there. However, when you install new data, it overrides the old stuff, and does write in a sequential order.

Vista constantly defrags itself, and thus the program's not really meant to be used by the end-user. If you use Vista's built in defragger, it'll take hours and hours before it's done as it's marked a very low priority task. I use AusLogics Defragger to get the visual data.

 

Well....actually, all that a quick format does is erase the drives index. It is the same as ripping the index from a book.

I was under the impression that a full format did, in fact, conduct a write/re-write of all cells which is why it takes so long.

 

A full format is just a quick format while checking for bad sectors with chkdsk. A low-level format replaces all the bits, but is almost never done today.

 

So when you folks reformat a drive, you never use the 'quick format' option? That's what I always use... Don't really feel like waiting around an hour for the drive too format itself.

That being said, what is a good free program too completely wipe a drive 50 times over? (forget the term used...). Rather than drill holes in and trash it, I'm thinking of giving a hard drive too my sisters boyfriend who is an Xbox user...

 

think of defragging as reorganizing your book shelf, with all books properly arranged, so that they can be easily found or referenced.

formatting is equivalent to emptying your book shelf ... so that you can mess it up again with your books ...

 

Disk vendors do low-level formatting at the factory. Today, an end-user, in most cases, should never perform a low-level formatting of an IDE or ATA hard drive, and in fact it is often not possible to do so on modern hard drives outside of the factory.While it's impossible to perform an LLF on most modern hard drives (since the mid-1990s) outside the factory, the term "low-level format" is still being used (erroneously) for what should be called the reinitialization of an IDE or ATA hard drive to its factory configuration (and even these terms may be misunderstood). Reinitialization should include identifying (and sparing out if possible) any sectors which cannot be written to and read back from the drive, correctly. The term has, however, been used by some to refer to only a portion of that process, in which every sector of the drive is written to; usually by writing a zero byte to every addressable location on the disk; sometimes called zero-filling.

Wikipeadia

 

thanks. once again, i walk amongst genii.

 

Manufactures still have the utility to do it on their sites. And you can download others very easily. I have one and it's like 500kb.

It can take up to 4 hours do just 0 a 40gig drive. It you want to make sure it's completely gone you can run multiple loops where it goes and 0s everything then on the second pass do 1s then zeros again...

Sometimes these low level formats can even get rid of bad sectors. I know that's what some refurb drives are. They just keep looping it, clear the SMART info then rescan the drive for errors then if the drive passes it's good to go again.

 

It should be noted that a low level format isn't exactly a secure way of wiping a disk. If you're just giving the drive to someone for their xbox it's fine, but if you have something you really need to get rid of you need to overwrite the disk a few times. I seem to recall needing to do it 8x or so, but I don't know what the magic number is these days.

But for normal stuff, just get a diagnostic tool that has a low level tool, or grab a Linux install CD and issue the command:

cat /dev/zero > /dev/hdX

The 'X' being replaced depending on which disk it is. Sometimes it would be /dev/sdX. Just let it run for a few hours, like 6-24 depending on the disk's size and speed.

 

Before you get all into the formating and completely wiping your disk, ask yourself: "Do I really care that my friend's brother can find out that my high score on Minesweeper is 20 seconds if he spends $1500 pulling up the old data?"

I guess the point is, most people aren't that important. Your friend's brother is going to play his own Minesweeper game and doesn't care about your high score.

 

Vista's defragger sucks......

All one can do is start it and you will never know when it is going to end and what it is going to change... - No status bar, no visualization options....