does format affects hard drive

[sanctus]

Is there a possibility of doing a lot of formats to damage the hard drive?

Because i did 4 in one day

[selden]

Is there a possibility of doing a lot of formats to damage the hard drive?

Because i did 4 in one day

No more than any other disk I/O, unless it writes the wrong information. High level formatting rewrites the disk blocks which describe the organization of the files on the disk: it rewrites the boot blocks and the directories. Low level formatting (which is almost impossible to do with modern disks) rewrites the sector headers. That can be problematic if it doesn't preserve the list of previous bad blocks.

[sanctus]

so i don't have to worry right?

[selden]

so i don't have to worry right?

Not about what formatting might have done.
The reason you decided to do a reformat might be grounds for concern, though.

People often choose a "quick reformat" which only rewrites the directories. A long reformat tests every block on the disk. That is an attempt to locate blocks which already are problematic and shouldn't be used. There being bad blocks on a new disk isn't reason for concern. The high recording densities currently used and the variations in manufacturing processes make them inevitable. If the number of bad blocks increases rapidly while the disk is in use, then that is reason for concern. Modern "SMART" disks usually will detect this and trigger an alarm.

[sanctus]

thanks selden

[Don. Edwards]

Also reformatting a hard drive is no different from the daily moving of files that is done by your operating system. If you had any idea about how many times a day your drive gets things written to it then removed you would be quite surprised.

Windows Vista has a built in defrager that is moving data around all the time. If you have Vista just stand back for a few minutes and watch as your hard drive light starts to blink as the defraging begins.

So as selden said, there is no harm formatting you drives as long as you are careful and format the wrong one.

[ouch]

Here:
1. Click "Start" (XP) or Windows logo (Vista).
2. Then, click "Run".
3. Then type: "cmd".
4. Then type in the command prompt: "convert (letter of hard drive):/fs:ntfs" (example: "convert c:/fs:ntfs") without quotes if you use FAT, FAT16, or FAT32.
5. If failed, type chkdsk.
6. If failed again, reboot and chkdsk will appear.
7. Repeat again in step #1 ro #4.

For me, it works !

[Don. Edwards]

Better yet, right click My Computer on either the desktop or in the start menu and select "Manage". On the left you will see a list of sub apps. Click storage and under it Disk Management will appear. Click that and you will have a graphic user interface for deleting. creating partitions as well as formatting drives. As always make sure you are working with the right drive. This utility will not allow to accidentally erase your boot drive, but you can play all sorts of havoc on all your other drives and partitions.

Here is what it looks like.






Don. Edwards

[sanctus]

Thanks so much guys

[NerdyGirl]

I know that this is an older thread, but this just so happened to be the one I found on Google. I was looking for an answer to the same exact problem. I had often heard that consistently reformatting/formating your disk caused massive amounts of damage. Luckily, this isn't the case -- unless you did something completely wrong. So yeah. . .kudos to the super smart computer people who answered the question for us techno-phobes. Ha ha!

Oh yeah! I actually had one more question to ask -- maybe you guys can answer it. Seeing as we're on the subject of hard drives possibly failing, have any of you guys utilized any sort of high availability service so you don't lose your work or progress? I know that reformatting doesn't do TOO much harm, but I'm afraid that my applications will fail and I'll lose all of the work I completed -- saved or not saved.

Anyway, thanks a bunch, guys! =)

[Don. Edwards]

Probably the best thing you can do is image your hard drive. Its a form of backing up, but instead of just backing up certain files, imagining creates a compressed copy of your hard drives partition. If something catastrophic happens, you can then simply restore the image to your hard drive or a new hard drive. Windows 7 has this ability built in as does Vista Ultimate and Professional, Vista Home basic and Premium and XP do not. You have to use a third party application under those versions of windows. The most widely used imagine software in the windows world is Norton Ghost. For both methods you need a bootable Floppy or CD to do the recovery work. As I mentioned, windows 7 has all this built in, so while it might seem a bit expensive for some users, it goes a long way to try and help you help yourself at protecting and recovering your computer and it data.

If you want more info I am willing to pass it along.

Don. Edwards

[John Van Vliet]

--- edit ---