Quick or Full format

PJB · n00b Joined: 31 Jul 2004 Posts: 8

Hi All..

I have a 120g HD and I am getting it ready to reinstall Gentoo. I am running Windows XP now.

My question is this.. I have heard that there is a way to do a quick format of the drive. Formatting the entire thing takes 4+ hours. Is it wise to do a quick format .. and if so , how do I do it ? Or is it better since I have a NTFS systems now to bite the bullet and format the long way ?

Thanks in advance ..

~P

dashaun · Posted: Mon Aug 30, 2004 6:26 pm Post subject:

I don't think it's necessary, during the install process when your partition your drive and/or change the file system type you will end up with a clean disk anyway.

I don't think you need to format it before you start the install.
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ep98 · Posted: Mon Aug 30, 2004 6:26 pm Post subject: Re: Quick or Full format

PJB · n00b Joined: 31 Jul 2004 Posts: 8

Hmm.. so I don't need to format the drive at all ?

And ep98.. I don't need the NTFS format to get Gentoo running ..I just want to make sure that the Windows NTFS partition is completly gone before I start my install

ep98 · Posted: Mon Aug 30, 2004 6:56 pm Post subject:

mkfs.xfs or mkfs.ext2/3 /dev/hda? partision number will gone for sure in a second (under XFS), under ext2/3 will take some time

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PJB · n00b Joined: 31 Jul 2004 Posts: 8

Ok.. Thank you for the help

lwithers · Guru Joined: 31 Dec 2003 Posts: 300 Location: Reading, UK

Formatting a 250Gb SATA drive under ext3 took only a few minutes. A 40Gb IDE partition took win2k nearly an hour...

ep98 · Posted: Mon Aug 30, 2004 8:17 pm Post subject:

PJB · n00b Joined: 31 Jul 2004 Posts: 8

How did you format a 250g drive so fast ?

Twist · Guru Joined: 03 Jan 2003 Posts: 414 Location: San Diego

When Windows does a "full" format, it is actually writing blocks to the drive and reading the results back to make sure the drive surface is valid. The "quick" option in Windows just writes the necessary file system header information and zeroes the first blocks necessary for the use of the drive.

Most linux file systems do the equivalent of the "quick" option (it's up to the mkfs command for the file system in question). So for an apples to apples you are looking at windows "quick" to mkfs.xfs or whatever.

And yes, there is no need to format your drive under Windows unless you need a partition there for windows use - the linux formatting will be done, appropriately enough, under Linux, and will be quite fast.

-Twist

PJB · n00b Joined: 31 Jul 2004 Posts: 8

Ahhh!! It makes sense now

Thanks bunches

rush_ad · Posted: Tue Aug 31, 2004 2:26 am Post subject:

good that we can help you.