Should I Format a New Hard Drive?

When you get a new hard drive, it is always advisable to do a full format before you start using it. Hard drives can be used right away without formatting too, but, this might create problems during the long run. Formatting a hard drive prepares it to be used with your laptop/computer.

• During formatting a hard drive, you will have to select a file system that will be used on it. File system is the way the operating system on your laptop or PC organises and retrieves data that is stored in the hard drive. Ensure that you select the right file system that will work with your OS.

• Formatting a hard drive checks for any bad sectors on it. If there are any bad sectors, these are noted and will not be used to store information.

Note:- A sector is the basic unit of storage on a hard drive.

• A full format erases any data stored on the drive previously. Some people say that the manufacturer’s test data might be present on the hard drive. A full format can clear this all up.

Note:- To a user, formatting a hard drive fully, makes it seem that all data is removed from it. But actually, this data is only over-written with empty tables. These can be recovered (fully or partially) with some specialised software.

• While formatting a hard drive, a bootable partition is created. This is where the operating system will be installed. You can further create more partitions to store your files. Creating another partition apart from the one used for storing the system files is always advisable as reformatting at a later stage becomes easy. You’ll then only have to format the partition on which the OS resides, leaving the other partitions undisturbed.