Possible Duplicates:
Should I choose 'Format' or 'Format (Quick)' when installing Windows XP?
Windows drive formatting algorithm
In windows we have these two options for formatting a drive, what is the defference between the two options?
| |||
|
feedback
|
closed as exact duplicate by Mehper C. Palavuzlar, afrazier, studiohack♦ Feb 17 '11 at 19:57
This question covers exactly the same ground as earlier questions on this topic; its answers may be merged with another identical question. See the FAQ for guidance on how to improve it.
|
Complete format checks disk surface, while quick format just creates filesystem entries. Complete format may detect disk errors (for example broken blocks), while quick format usually misses those. | |||
|
feedback
|
|
User68033 covered it quite well, there is one other difference, a complete or Full format does the checking by writing to and reading each sector, this effectively erases the data off the drive making it much more difficult to retrieve with normal recovery techniques. More effective for security but not perfect. When the quick format recreates the file system it literally leaves all the data in place and just marks the space as empty in it's list. This type of format is very easy to recover data from if you ever do it as a mistake. | |||
feedback
|
|
You might want to look at http://support.microsoft.com/kb/302686. | ||||
|
feedback
|
