Formatting 400Gb

[Sir_Crashalot]

Hi,

how long does it take Windows to format a 400 Gb HDD? My new external Seagate HDD is formatting now for almost 2 to 3 hours.

Crash

[MWISimmer]

My Western Digital 250Gb "mybook" formatted in a matter of minutes.

I presume it's brand new out of the box?

[justpassingthrough]

During the Windows install you have a choice. There is a NTFS LONG format process which includes a full disk check and sector scan which can take a long time on a larger drive. Then there is the NTFS QUICK format which takes a matter of seconds.

It is always best to do the LONG process on a new drive to ensure it has no defects. If Windows finds a defective sector it will mark the sector in the file allocation table to not be used by Windows.

I learned about that from NickN. He also recommends running the FULL Disk Check:


Enable
"Automatically fix file system errors"
"Scan and attempt recovery of bad sectors"


once every 6 months to ensure the drive is in good shape. Disk errors may not show up in any log and may cause strange stutters or wierd behavior in games. Running the full scan and repair may fix those issues and Windows does not have to fight errors in the background you may not see happening.

[Fozzer]

My 80Gb Hard drive takes about three weeks* (or longer) to De-Frag properly......!

...which is one of the reasons why I NEVER buy large capacity Hard Drives... ...!

Paul.... 8-)...!

* ...I exaggerate....(but only slightly!)... ...!

[Sir_Crashalot]

It's new, straight out of the box but I don't think it's working. It's spinning but there is no activity. Progress bar stays on zero too. I'll return it to the shop tomorrow. Thanks anyway.

Crash

[Gunny04]

Well that Depends, I find my USB ports on the computer are not high speed, so I am stuck running 14.5 or so MBPS max, Takes about 8 hours to transfer a few gigs of data (I spent well over 18 in total moving stuff) So it's not that uncommon for those drives to be slow, you say it's external, and thats why, When you plug it in does Windows bicker about how much faster it could be or that its a high speed device etc? If so buy a USB addon card (PCI) and stick it in, should speed it up a bit! (480Mbps bit to be exact if its a slow USB port)

Gunny (Still rumaging around at a lovely 14mbps)

EDIT: Also, when a drive is running that slow, its not going to make much noise.... it's not like its spinning insanely like your typical sata or IDE drive!