Is "Quick Format" safe?

[40hz]

This is somewhat of a shock to me - first, because this means a format doesn't wipe your data. Second, because new bad sectors might not be discovered merely from a read, and sector reallocation only kicks in on a write. Eek.

Thanks for making me look into this, Joker - I'll be sure to do an explicit single-pass wipe instead of format from now on.

-f0dder (November 16, 2010, 06:59 AM)

You could always try a Low Level Format, it worked on my 1TB Samsung - took a very long time, probably the same amount as doing a single-pass wipe.

-4wd (November 16, 2010, 06:33 PM)

FWIW, AFAIK all modern "low level format" utilities actually perform a "zero-fill erase" or "single-pass wipe" operation - so it's all just different ways of saying the same* thing.  

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* I personally prefer the phrase: "hit it on the head."  A fellow tech has coined the term skooge , which I also like. ("Better skooge that puppy first if you're gonna reuse it!")

[4wd]

FWIW, AFAIK all modern "low level format" utilities actually perform a "zero-fill erase" or "single-pass wipe" operation - so it's all just different ways of saying the same* thing.  

-40hz (November 16, 2010, 10:32 PM)

But I believe that a LLF also initiates a bad block scan, something a single-pass wipe won't.



Edit: Remove f0dder reference because of my misinterpretation.

[f0dder]

This is somewhat of a shock to me - first, because this means a format doesn't wipe your data. Second, because new bad sectors might not be discovered merely from a read, and sector reallocation only kicks in on a write. Eek.

Thanks for making me look into this, Joker - I'll be sure to do an explicit single-pass wipe instead of format from now on.

-f0dder (November 16, 2010, 06:59 AM)

You could always try a Low Level Format, it worked on my 1TB Samsung - took a very long time, probably the same amount as doing a single-pass wipe.

-4wd (November 16, 2010, 06:33 PM)

There's no such thing as end-user "low level format" and there hasn't been for years and years - all this does is to fill the drive with zero sectors:

While it is impossible to perform an LLF on most modern hard drives (since the mid-1990s) outside the factory, the term "low-level format" is still being used (erroneously) for what should be called the reinitialization of a hard drive to its factory configuration (and even these terms may be misunderstood). Reinitialization should include identifying (and sparing out if possible) any sectors which cannot be written to and read back from the drive, correctly. The term has, however, been used by some to refer to only a portion of that process, in which every sector of the drive is written to; usually by writing a zero byte to every addressable location on the disk, sometimes called zero-filling.

-http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Disk_formatting#Disk_reinitialization

[4wd]

So my terminology is wrong - so sue me

But I believe that a LLF also initiates a bad block scan, something a single-pass wipe won't.

-4wd (November 17, 2010, 01:35 AM)

And I probably should of put it this way:

But I believe that a Reinitialisation, (what I termed LLF), also initiates a bad block scan, something a single-pass wipe might not, (depending on the software you use).

[f0dder]

So my terminology is wrong - so sue me

-4wd (November 17, 2010, 01:47 AM)

Even HDD manufacturers use the term (erroneously) in their HDD tools, so it's easy to see why people get confused

[4wd]

Still, when you compare it to what it used to do on some early ATA drives, (render them useless or do nothing), it could be called an improvement.