Question from user
Hello.
I want to completely delete all the contents on the disk, and then reinstall the system. I have two drives ("C:" and "D:") - I was able to format one, but there is a problem with the "C:" drive. Do not tell me how you can format the system hard drive (on which Windows 8 is installed)?
Good day to all!
In general, on today's modern system, starting disk formatting is not a complicated operation, I would even say simple (not what it was 20 years ago). Perhaps, questions arise only in cases where Windows does not see the disk, errors appear during formatting, or when trying to format the system disk (as in your case).
In the article below I will analyze several formatting methods - depending on your tasks and the specific problem, select the one you need. So...
Important: after formatting the drive, all information on it will be deleted! Make a copy of the necessary files from the disk to third-party media in advance.
Probably the classic and easiest way to format a disk is to go to "My Computer" (or "This Computer", depending on your OS version), find the desired disk partition in it. Then select this section, right-click on it - and select the required one in the context menu (i.e. formatting, see screenshot below).
Note: if there is no "My Computer" icon on the desktop, and you do not know how to open it, press the button combination WIN+E- Explorer will open: on the left in the menu, select the link to "My Computer / This Computer".
Format drive // This PC // Windows 10
In general, the default settings will usually suit most users - you can immediately click the "Start" button. In a few minutes you will have a "blank" disk...
In those cases when you went to "My Computer" - and your connected disk is simply not visible in it (this often happens with new disks that have not been formatted) - then you need to use either special utilities or use the "disk management" tool built into Windows.
To open Disk Management, you need:
Next, you will see not only all connected drives, flash drives, memory cards, etc., but also what partitions were created on them - i.e. the whole structure. Select the desired section, and right-click on it - in the context menu, click on the item "Format..." (see red arrows on the screen below).
In cases where the explorer freezes (for example), also in case of various kinds of errors, you can try to format the disk via the command line.
First you need to open it as an administrator. For this:
format G: /FS:NTFS /q
G: - letter of the disk being formatted (specify carefully!);
/FS:NTFS - select file system;
/q - quick format.
Basically, the drive must be formatted.
In Windows 10, by the way, a small "error" may appear - the system will ask you to specify the volume label for the disk, and then it will write that "Invalid disk label is specified" (although you seem to have indicated everything correctly, see the example below).
In this case, do the following...
First, open the command line on the drive you want to format, for example, the drive G: (see screenshot below).
Team VOL- look at the volume label
Next, enter the format command again, and in the disk label field - the label that we learned in the previous step (in my case, Windows 8). Next, you will be warned that all data will be destroyed during formatting (agree by entering y and pressing Enter ).
In the next step, you will be prompted to enter a volume label - now you can specify any name (32 characters). You can simply leave the field blank by pressing Enter. Actually, that's it - the disk will be formatted (screen below).
The best programs and utilities for working with a hard drive:
Now there are hundreds of different programs and utilities for working with hard drives. Operations such as formatting, splitting, defragmenting, and so on can be done in more convenient programs than those built into Windows. The link to the article with the best of them is given above.
In my opinion, one of those that deserves attention is AOMEI Partition Assistant.
AOMEI Partition Assistant
It allows you to quickly, safely, and easily carry out the most necessary operations with disk drives:
What else captivates is that the program has many different step-by-step wizards - they will help solve the problem even for those users who have only recently met with a PC. Well, for example, you can convert the FAT 32 file system to NTFS without losing data, transfer Windows from a hard drive to a newfangled SSD, etc.
(for formatting system partitions, for example, on which Windows is installed)
If you want to format the partition on which Windows is installed, then it just won't work. The bottom line is that you need to boot from another medium - for example, from another hard drive (on which Windows is installed) or from a bootable USB flash drive, and then format your drive.
Naturally, you need to prepare such media in advance (for example, an installation USB flash drive with Windows) - since after formatting the system partition of the drive, Windows will no longer boot from it (don't install it again yet. Chaotically explained, but in general terms, I think it's clear ☻).
The easiest way to format the system partition of a disk is to use a Windows installation flash drive. You can learn how to create and prepare it (if you don’t have it) from my previous articles (I provide links below).
Utilities for creating bootable USB flash drives with Windows -
Create a bootable Windows 10 USB flash drive -
Creating a bootable USB flash drive for installing Windows XP, 7, 8, 10 (UEFI and Legacy) -
The easiest way to boot from a flash drive is to use a special boot menu - BOOT MENU, which can be called immediately after turning on the computer / laptop (or by changing the boot priority in the BIOS). In order not to repeat myself here, I will give a couple of links to detailed articles about this.
Hotkeys for entering the BIOS menu, Boot Menu, recovery from a hidden partition -
How to configure the BIOS to boot from a USB flash drive or disk (CD / DVD / USB) -
Next, booting from the installation flash drive, you need to get to the selection of the partition for installing Windows. In this step, you can format both the entire disk (delete all partitions and create them again as well), and its individual partitions.
If there are difficulties, and you do not know how to get to this step when installing Windows, I recommend that you read this article:
Take the same AOMEI Partition Assistant that I recommended using when working from under Windows, a little higher in the article. She has an excellent tool in her arsenal for creating a special emergency flash drive from which you can boot when your system has crashed (or it is not installed on the disk at all).
About programs for working with hard drives, I have an article on my blog:(including the AOMEI Partition Assistant).
To create such a flash drive, you need to run on a working PC in the program "Wizard/Make Bootable CD Master".
To boot from such a flash drive, use also boot menu, links to instructions were given above in the article, in the previous step. When you boot from the emergency flash drive, the menu and the program will be similar to the one that works under Windows. Just click on the desired disk and perform the necessary operation (screenshot below).
AOMEI Partition Assistant - partition formatting
That's all, for additions a separate merci.
As various statistics show, not all users know how to perform the specified action. The biggest problems arise if you need to format the C drive in Windows 7 or 8, i.e. system hard drive.
In this manual, we will just talk about how to do this, in fact, a simple action - to format the C drive (or rather, the drive on which Windows is installed), and any other hard drive. Well, I'll start with the simplest.
In order to format a disk or its logical partition in Windows 7 or Windows 8 (relatively speaking, drive D), just open Explorer (or "My Computer"), right-click on the disk and select "Format".
After that, simply specify, if desired, the volume label, the file system (although it is better to leave NTFS here) and the formatting method (it makes sense to leave "Quick Format"). Click "Start" and wait until the drive is completely formatted. Sometimes, if the hard drive is large enough, this can take a long time and you may even think that the computer is frozen. With a 95% chance it's not, just wait.
Another way to format a non-system hard drive is to do so using the format command on a command prompt run as administrator. In general terms, a command that performs a quick format of a disk in NTFS will look like this:
Format /FS:NTFS D: /q
Where D: is the letter of the drive being formatted.
In general, this guide will work for previous versions of Windows. So, if you try to format the system hard drive in Windows 7 or 8, you will see a message that:
What is happening is easily explained - Windows cannot format the drive on which it is located. Moreover, even if the operating system is installed on disk D or any other, the first partition (i.e., disk C) will still contain the files necessary to boot the operating system, since when you turn on the computer, the BIOS will first start loading from there.
Thus, when formatting the C drive, you should remember that this action implies the subsequent installation of Windows (or another OS) or, if Windows is installed on a different partition, the boot configuration of the OS after formatting, which is not the most trivial task and, if you are not too an experienced user (and apparently it is, since you are here), I would not recommend taking it.
If you are confident in what you are doing, then continue. In order to format the C drive or the Windows system partition, you will need to boot from some other media:
There are also special solutions such as Acronis Disk Director, Paragon Partition Magic or Manager and others. But we will not consider them: firstly, these products are paid, and secondly, for the purposes of simple formatting, they are redundant.
In order to format the system disk in this way, boot from the appropriate installation media and select "Full installation" at the stage of choosing the type of installation. The next thing you will see will be the selection of the partition to install.
Another way is to press Shift + F10 at any time during the installation, a command prompt will open. From which you can also format (how to do this, it was written above). Here you need to take into account that in the installer the drive letter C may be different, in order to find it out, first use the command:
Wmic logicaldisk get deviceid, volumename, description
And, to clarify whether something was mixed up - the DIR D: command, where D: is the drive letter. (With this command, you will see the contents of the folders on the disk).
After that, you can already apply format to the desired section.
Formatting a hard drive using various kinds of LiveCD is not much different from formatting just in Windows. Since when booting from a LiveCD, all the really necessary data is located in the computer's RAM, you can use various BartPE options to format the system hard drive simply through Explorer. And, just like in the options already described, use the format command on the command line.
There are other formatting nuances, but I will describe them in one of the following articles. And in order for a novice user to know how to format drive C, this article, I think, will be enough. If so, ask questions in the comments.
All new hard drives are already formatted at a low level by the manufacturer and do not require re-initialization. In practice, under normal circumstances, you are unlikely to need to perform a low-level formatting of the hard drive, since technically only the manufacturer can perform this kind of real formatting.
What computers call low-level formatting is actually more of initialization and surface testing of the disk, since the process performs writes and read checks on all sectors of the disk. If there are no disk problems, there is no need for a full initialization or surface check.
First, let's understand the concepts of formatting at a low and at a high level.
Low level format- an operation during which servo marks are applied to the magnetic surface of the disk (information that is used to position the heads of the hard disk). It is carried out in the process of manufacturing a hard disk, on special equipment.
When the process of low-level formatting of the hard drive is started for the first time, the hard disk platters are empty, that is, they contain absolutely no information about sectors, tracks, and so on. This is the last moment when the hard drive has absolutely empty platters. The information written during this process will never be overwritten again.
Older hard drives had the same number of sectors per track and did not have built-in controllers, so the external hard drive controller did the low-level formatting, and the only information it needed was the number of tracks and the number of sectors per track. Using this information, the external controller could format the hard drive. Modern hard drives have a complex internal structure, including changing the number of sectors per track when moving from external to internal tracks, as well as built-in servo information to control the drive heads.
Due to such a complex data structure, all modern hard drives are low-level formatted only once - at the factory.
There are two types of high-level formatting:
Formatting in normal mode - a process that consists in creating a master boot record with a partition table and (or) structures of an empty file system, setting a boot sector, and similar actions. The formatting process also checks the integrity of the media to block bad sectors.
Quick Format - the same process as formatting in normal mode, only without checking the media for bad sectors.
The use of the term low-level formatting in relation to hard drives has given rise to many myths. For example, there is an opinion that it is impossible to perform a low-level formatting of a hard disk and that attempting such an operation will result in destruction of the disk. In principle, there is some truth in this misconception. It consists in the fact that during low-level formatting of old disks of the late 1980s, the optimal adjustment of the bevel of heads and cylinders, set by the disk manufacturer, as well as the map of disk defects, were violated.
All this negatively affected the performance of devices. The described problem has long since been resolved, and all devices using zone recording (with a variable number of sectors per track) are immune to any problems that low-level formatting can lead to, since real markers cannot be replaced by a sector.
So low-level formatting of disks released in the 1990s and later excludes violating its settings.
At the same time, there is often a real need to perform low-level formatting of ATA and SCSI drives. Now we will talk about programs that will help to do this.
ATA drive manufacturers have defined and standardized extensions to the original WD1002/1003 hard drive controller by creating the AT bus interface (known as the ATA interface). The ATA specification is implemented for vendor specific commands that are unique to the standard. To avoid incorrect low-level formatting, many of the ATA devices have special commands that must be sent to the device to unlock the format procedures. These commands are specific to the device manufacturer, so you should look for low-level formatting and defect management programs created by the drive manufacturer.
These programs are most often designed not only for devices of a particular manufacturer, but also for their individual models. So before doing a search, make a note of the manufacturer and model number of your hard drive.
Modern hard drives are protected from the possibility of changing the skew factor or defect map because they are always in conversion mode. Devices with zone recording are always in this mode and thus are completely protected.
Most hard drives have an additional set of commands that are used during the formatting process, and the standard ATA specification commands do not work (especially for zone-write ATA devices).
Spare sectors can also be allocated automatically using programs provided by the device manufacturer. Without knowing the correct manufacturer-specific commands, it is impossible to replace defective sectors with spare ones specially allocated in modern devices for this purpose. The detected bad sector is replaced in the distribution structure with the spare sector closest to it.
Some hard drive manufacturers offer low level formatting programs. They can be found at the following addresses.
First of all, you should try out the programs provided by the device manufacturer. All of them are free and often allow you to work at a low level in a way that wide-range programs do not allow.
If the drive manufacturer does not offer an initialization/verification/formatting program, you can use the Drive Fitness Test program from Hitachi (formerly IBM). This program works great with drives from other manufacturers and performs a detailed full test of the entire hard drive. It is one of the best general purpose programs because it allows you to perform a non-destructive test. Although any device can be tested with it, there is one limitation: destructive read/write tests can only be performed on Hitachi and IBM drives.
Advice!
All of the listed programs for initializing, testing, and formatting a hard drive, as well as many others, can be found in the Ultimate Boot CD (UBCD) collection of utilities. This is a fantastic collection of diagnostic tools in one downloadable CD! A copy of this CD can be downloaded from www.ultimatebootcd.com.
I strongly discourage the use of non-destructive BIOS-level formatting tools such as Calibrate (formerly included with Symantec Norton Utilities) when low-level formatting is really needed. Such tools are characterized by a number of limitations and problems that reduce their effectiveness. They perform low-level formatting on individual tracks using BIOS functions; while backing up and restoring individual tracks.
These programs also do not create a defect map, as low-level formatters usually do. Moreover, they can remove defect map markers added by standard low-level formatters. As a result, it becomes possible to save data in bad sectors, which in some cases may lead to a loss of warranty.
Another limitation is that these programs can only be used with hard drives that have been pre-formatted using BIOS functions.
A low-level formatter created by disk manufacturers "bypasses" the system BIOS and passes commands directly to the controller. Therefore, many of these programs are designed to work with specific controllers. Having one such program that could be used when working with different controllers is almost impossible to imagine. Many hard drives can be incorrectly identified as defective just because the wrong program was used.
I’ll make a reservation right away that in this case, low-level formatting means testing the disk surface for bad sectors through reading and writing. As mentioned above, factory low-level formatting of a modern hard drive can only be done by the manufacturer.
Hard drives and solid state drives can be formatted at a low level by several methods. Let's consider one of them applicable to PC. Mac computers are not suitable for this example.
To low-level format a hard drive, we need:
Before the formatting process, connect the device to the computer. This can be done either through the IDE, SATA, USB or Firefire interface. In this case, low-level formatting will be carried out in the Windows system, without pre-booting using special boot disks. This is the easiest way for the average PC user.
After the device is connected:
1. Download Windows Data Lifeguard Diagnostics from http://support.wdc.com/product/download.asp?groupid=113&sid=3&lang=en
2. After downloading the application, launch it and follow the installation wizard.
If after installation a dialog box appears with a message about the impossibility of starting the program, then close it and click on the OK button. The program must be started in a different way.
3. A shortcut to the program will appear on the desktop, double-click on it.
4. Check the box next to I accept this… and click on the Next button.
The program will display all connected drives. Despite the fact that in my example, the formatting was carried out on a test Maxtor hard drive, and it was successful, I recommend that you use this program only for Western Digital discs, to avoid potential media problems. If you have a Seagate hard drive, use a similar program from Seagate.
5. Select the disk that needs to be diagnosed and click the to run tests button. ALWAYS double-check that you have chosen the right disk, otherwise, you will lose all data on this medium, without the possibility of recovering it, since this process is destructive and irreversible.
7. In the next window, select the EXTENDED TEST option and click the Start button.
8. Close all files that are open on the selected hard drive and click the OK button.
9. The test procedure on a 20 GB hard drive took about 10 minutes. At the end of testing, click on the Close button.
10. But that's not all. Now again click on the to run tests button and in the dialog box select the WRITE ZEROS option and click on the Start button. This procedure will overwrite all sectors with zeros.
10. Depending on the state of the disk, you will receive one or two prompts to remind you that this action will destroy all data currently on the disk. Click the Yes button.
10. Then choose which method you would like to use to write the zeros. The QUICK ERASE option is much faster, but does not completely erase the disk. This is suitable for users who plan to rewrite the disc multiple times. FULL ERASE completely erases the disc. This takes longer, but ensures that no data on the drive can later be recovered using data recovery methods. This method is designed for people who need to permanently delete data from their disk, such as hackers;).
Once you have determined which method you would like to use, select the OK button to begin the formatting process. I recommend choosing FULL ERASE (Full erasure).
11. Start the overwriting process. For example, it took me about 10 minutes to overwrite a 20 GB hard drive.
12. After the process is complete, click again on the to run tests button and in the dialog box select the VIEW TEST RESULT option and click on the Start button.
13. The window will display information about the hard drive and the tests that have passed. To be honest, the information in this report is very scarce.
14. If the process was successful, then the low-formatted hard drive will not be available in the system. Now it needs to be initialized, partitioned and formatted at a high level.
14. Open Start -> All Programs-> Accessories-> Run and in the window enter the command diskmgmt.msc .
15. The Disk Management program will start and the Disk Initialization window will automatically appear, where the required disk will be selected. Specify the Master Boot Record option and click the OK button.
This completes the low-level formatting process.
The same process can be used for hard drive media from other manufacturers. For example, Seagate offers a very handy diagnostic tool for its media.
In conclusion, I will give an example of how the Data Lifeguard Diagnostics program displays a failed disk. As an example, a Fujitsu hard drive was taken. The program has determined that the media is bad, as indicated by SMART STATUS .
The program, using EXTENDED TEST, showed that bad sectors were found on the disk.
The program tried to fix them, but nothing happened.
There can be two reasons for this: firstly, the hard disk and the diagnostic program are from different manufacturers, so some commands may not be processed correctly, and secondly, this disk cannot be restored, since it began to “crumble”, i.e. physical damage appeared on the surface of his discs; before that it was already on my test table.
Good day.
Questions regarding hard disk operation ( or as they say HDD) - always a lot (probably one of the most numerous directions). Quite often, to solve a particular issue - the hard drive needs to be formatted. And here, some questions are superimposed on others: “How? With what? This program does not see the disk, which one should I replace it with? etc.
In this article I will present the best (in my opinion) programs that help to cope with this task.
Important! Before formatting the HDD with one of the presented programs, save all important information from the hard drive to other media. During the formatting process, all data from the media will be deleted and restoring something is sometimes extremely difficult (and sometimes even impossible!).
Acronis Disk Manager
In my opinion, this is one of the best programs for working with a hard drive. Firstly, there is support for the Russian language (this is important for many users), secondly, support for all Windows OS: XP, 7, 8, 10, thirdly, the program has excellent compatibility and “sees” all disks (unlike from other utilities of this kind).
Judge for yourself, you can do “anything” with hard disk partitions:
In general, it is probably unrealistic to describe all the functions in one article. The only disadvantage of the program is that it is paid, although there is time for a test ...
Paragon partition manager
This program is well known, I think that experienced users have known it for a long time. Includes all the most necessary tools for working with media. By the way, the program supports not only real physical disks, but also virtual ones.
Key features:
EASEUS Partition Master Home Edition
An excellent free (by the way, there is also a paid version - it has several additional functions) tool for working with hard drives. Supported OS Windows: 7, 8, 10 (32/64 bits), there is support for the Russian language.
The number of functions is simply amazing, I will list some of them:
In general, a good alternative to the paid products presented above. Even the features of the free version will be enough for most users.
Aomei Partition Assistant
Another worthy alternative to paid products. The standard version (and it is free) has a bunch of functions for working with hard drives, supports Windows 7, 8, 10, there is a Russian language (although it is not set by default). By the way, according to the assurances of the developers, they use special algorithms to work with “problem” disks - so that there is a possibility that your “invisible” disk in any software will suddenly be seen by Aomei Partition Assistant ...
Key features:
MiniTool Partition Wizard
MiniTool Partition Wizard is a free software for working with hard drives. By the way, and not bad at all, which only indicates that over 16 million users use this utility in the world!
Peculiarities:
HDD Low Level Format Tool
This utility does not do much of what the programs listed above can do. Yes, in general, she can do only one thing - format the media (disk or flash drive). But it was impossible not to include it in this review ...
The fact is that the utility performs low-level formatting of the disk. In some cases, restoring the hard drive without this operation is almost impossible! Therefore, if no program sees your disk, try HDD Low Level Format Tool. It also helps to delete ALL information from the disk without the possibility of recovery (for example, you do not want someone to be able to restore your files on a sold computer).
In general, I have a separate article about this utility on my blog (in which all these “subtleties” are described):
PS
About 10 years ago, by the way, one program was very popular - Partition Magic (it allowed you to format the HDD, partition the disk, etc.). In principle, you can use it today - only now the developers have stopped supporting it and it is not suitable for Windows XP, Vista and higher. On the one hand, it’s a pity when they stop supporting such convenient software…
That's all, good choice!
If you want to format a data disk, for example, a USB flash drive or a disk (D :), then this can also be done using standard Windows tools. However, if you want to format the system drive, that is, the drive on which Windows is installed, then it will not be possible to do this using regular means.
In order to format the drive (C :), you will need the Acronis Disk Director program. Using its boot disk, you can boot through the BIOS and format the disk with Windows.
To format a disk in Windows using standard means, follow these steps:
1. a) In Windows XP, go to the menu Start - Control Panel - Administrative Tools - Computer Management.
b) In Windows 7, go to the menu Start - Control Panel - System and Security - Administrative Tools - Computer Management
2. In the left part of the window that appears, select the item Disk Management.
3. Right click on the drive you want to format. In the context menu, select Format.
4. A formatting options window will appear.
In field volume label enter the name of the drive to be displayed in Explorer. This field can be left blank
Choose a file system NTFS. Leave the cluster size Default.
Check the box Quick Format to format in express mode. In fact, in this mode, the "disc table of contents" is simply cleared and it becomes clean. This saves a lot of time when formatting a disk.
Click OK. After a warning that all information on the disk will be deleted, the formatting of the disk will begin.
To format the C drive, that is, to format the Windows drive, you need to burn the Acronis Disk Director boot disk and boot from it through the BIOS.
From the boot disk menu select Acronis Disk Director 11 Advanced.
In the Acronis Boot Agent window that appears, select Launch management console.
The window that appears displays all physical hard drives and the logical partitions on them.
Right-click on the drive (C:) and select from the context menu Format.
Listed File system select NTFS, leave the cluster size Auto, The volume label is the name of the partition that will be displayed in Explorer. You can leave this field blank. Click OK.
Now press the button Apply Scheduled Operations.
A window will appear with a list of operations that will be performed with the disk. Click Continue.
The formatting process will begin. When it's over press the button close.
The disk is formatted. Now close the program window and click the Restart button to restart your computer.
