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Formatting too much?

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  • Formatting too much?

    Formatting a hard drive over and over and over (and over) doesn't damage it does it? I'm concerned about wear-and-tear and how an average lifetime for an ATA HD is... Any ideas?

    I hope 4 or 5 formats doesn't damage or wear something down too much?

    Thanks!

  • #2
    I think I rmemeber seeing that u can do 10,000 formats or something rediculous.

    I know for a fact that 4 or 5 is certainly no issue.

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    • #3
      Wow, 10,000. :) That's pretty comforting. lol...

      So what's the difference between quick and full format? Like, what do the two do different (quick is much faster, obviously ;) hehe).

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      • #4
        only 4 or 5 times? I have a hard drive that I formated at least 30 times and it is still going strong. HDD lifetimes vary and every time you access your hdd for data it gets ware and tare so formating isn't going to noticably reduce your hdd's life time. Defraging is probably the best way to prolong your hdd. So to answer your question, formating 4 or 5 times isn't going to hurt anything.:cool:

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        • #5
          quick format is just a glorified erase

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          • #6
            Originally posted by minibubba
            only 4 or 5 times? I have a hard drive that I formated at least 30 times and it is still going strong. HDD lifetimes vary and every time you access your hdd for data it gets ware and tare so formating isn't going to noticably reduce your hdd's life time. Defraging is probably the best way to prolong your hdd. So to answer your question, formating 4 or 5 times isn't going to hurt anything.:cool:
            Cool. Thanks everybody for th ehelp -- greatly appreciated! :thumb:

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            • #7
              Originally posted by minibubba
              quick format is just a glorified erase
              Quick format is nothing more than removing the file header information for that particular drive. Nothing more.

              I can make a straightforward promise... If you do a format /q, then I can go in behind you and pull every file that was on your hard drive when you're finished with this task. It erases nothing.
              Old age and treachery will overcome youth and skill
              My Toys

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              • #8
                i did not mean for that to be taken literaly.. this would be why I use ntfs, and do a secure erase whenever i format anything...aka overwritting the entire disk with repeating binary (1 0 1 0 ...) even with a full format data can still be retrieved from your hdd until it is overwritten. Anything that is deleted or erased remains in your hdd until it is overwirtten

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                • #9
                  How often do you guys format your hd? once a yr?

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                  • #10
                    I format every 4-6 months to keep windows running nice and tidy ;)

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                    • #11
                      same here, every couple of months

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                      • #12
                        Originally posted by mystryd
                        How often do you guys format your hd? once a yr?
                        Interesting question, with interesting answers for sure.

                        However this is not a basis for a guideline for your system I trust. You need to determine this based on your personal use/requirements. Windows can certainly get borked up over time by installing/uninstalling software. Less than proper driver upgrades can also have adverse affects on system health, manually removing old drivers is all too often a necessity for some hardware it seems - while others do just fine?
                        Of course the presence of malware is an excellent reason to reformat.

                        And certainly your hardware upgrade cycles have a huge impact on the necessity to clean install to get optimum performance from the OS.

                        Due to my budget limitations and my constant vigilance for malware, I am able to often go well in excess of 1 year between clean installs.

                        But these are all factors that you need to determine for yourself based on the use of your system.

                        Then again, if you are willing to take the time -- I don't think there is such a thing as reinstalling too frequently.

                        If you look at the Mean Time Between Failure specifications on modern drives, you can do a whole lot of formats with no worry.
                        The reason a diamond shines so brightly is because it has many facets which reflect light.

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                        • #13
                          Two common misconceptions are that formatting a hard drive and flashing the BIOS has a limit. They might, but you will never come close to it.

                          On my gamer I reformat my RAID with every Windows release (even the service packs). Also with every BIOS or RAID driver change. Often I just change my boot up graphic.

                          I mod XP or hack the BIOS whenever I feel like it, I format at least twice monthly. I have 2 years on my twin IBM 40 gigs, and close to 50 formats.

                          As far as I can tell, formatting has no effect on the drive longevity. Heavy fragmentation is probably worse for your drives.

                          If you mod XP, formatting is a part of the process. Eventually you trash XP beyond recovery. It is so much easier to reformat and reinstall from a backup than figure out exactly what you did wrong.

                          I COULD go a year and do it all at once, but why suffer the slowdowns and reconstruction needed to fix XP? I can get data to my server in 10 minutes, format the HD, install XP and my apps in less than two hours. But it is only 20 minutes of my time, the rest is unattended.

                          Formatting is a good option for getting rid of troubles that you do not know how to fix. I would not hesitate to use it.

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                          • #14
                            Why do you fellows format so often? :confused:

                            It won't hurt them but... :?:

                            <small>maybe some of ya's need to do some homework me thinks</small> :devil:

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                            • #15
                              i'm always playing around with different OS and configs...and every once in a while because it is easier to format than to figure out what went wrong...this is only a philosophy that I use with my own comp, when it belongs to someone else I figure out what is wrong with it before I ever mention formatting

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