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Monday 3.3.2025 / 09:45
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afterdawn.com > forums > pc hardware > other pc hardware > formatting hard drive advice
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formatting hard drive advice
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jerecho
Senior Member
_ 		25. December 2008 @ 23:18 _ Link to this message    Send private message to this user   
I'm getting a 1.5TB hard drive (sata) tomorrow and I am dredding formatting it because I just formatted a 1.0TB drive last weekend and it took like 9 hours! I need my new drive ready for use a.s.a.p. so my question is what can I do to speed up the process? I have a macbook pro with 4gb of RAM. Will this speed things up. (I have an usb docking station for the sata drive). The computer that i did the first drive on only has 1gb of ram. does this even matter? should i format through dos? any advice is needed. Thank you
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jerecho
Senior Member
_ 		25. December 2008 @ 23:41 _ Link to this message    Send private message to this user   
I forgot to mention that I am running vista 64 on all computers. the macbook is running vista through boot camp.
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ddp
Moderator
_ 		26. December 2008 @ 00:28 _ Link to this message    Send private message to this user   
presuming the drive is new then can do a quick format for ntfs as i do that when doing a fresh install of windows on a new pc. dos format will take a while tho don't think 9hrs.
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jony218
Suspended due to non-functional email address
_ 		26. December 2008 @ 00:35 _ Link to this message    Send private message to this user   
Just use the quick format setting. Every hard drive I've bought whether 20gb or 750gb I use the quick format, none took longer than 10 minutes to format. I use NTFS files system on all my hard drives, I don't know if that's what you are going to use. Is the USB docking station USB 2.0? I usually format mine on an external 2.0 case and it always goes quickly.

I think what you are doing wrong is using the scandisk/slow format setting. That isn't needed especially on a new drive. I've never done a slow format on any of my new drives and they have all worked perfectly.

9 hours is too long for a format, and put's a lot of unneeded wear and tear on your new drive.

Years ago when the hard drives were small and unreliable, a slow format was a good idea and highly recommended. A quick format will work fine on todays drives.
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jerecho
Senior Member
_ 		26. December 2008 @ 00:49 _ Link to this message    Send private message to this user   
Sweet I'll try that. What is the difference in the fast and slow settings. Yes the drive will be new. And yes the USB is 2.0. ThNks for the responces
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ddp
Moderator
_ 		26. December 2008 @ 01:21 _ Link to this message    Send private message to this user   
slow format has a better chance of finding bad spots on a drive.
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