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Are there any differences between formatting a drive in Windows XP vs. 7?

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Using the built-in functionality (i.e. Right Click > Format...)? – iglvzx Nov 27 '11 at 2:59
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3 Answers

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Nope. Use the same tools to format in Windows 7 as in XP.

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Right now, it is unclear which tools OP is using. – iglvzx Nov 27 '11 at 3:05
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up vote 1 down vote

Yes, Windows XP will not align the sectors to 4KB which is harmful for performance if you use a Solid State Disk drive, or a new Advanced Format standard hard drive with 4KB sectors.

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And certain 4KB sector hard drives, which are becoming more common. – Chris Thompson Nov 26 '11 at 20:39
Good point, I've edited my answer to include that. – Syclone0044 Nov 26 '11 at 20:42
@ChrisThompson: I believe you mean all 4K drives, since a 4K drive will have a 4K physical sector, no matter what it reports to the OS. – surfasb Nov 27 '11 at 20:33
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Windows 7 formatted NTFS partition has a higher version number of NTFS than Windows XP. The higher the version of NTFS, the more features are available. For example, symbolic links are not supported in the NTFS on Windows XP but it does in Windows Vista (and 7). There may be a backward compatibility issues if you try to use the coolest features offered in Windows 7 on an older OS.

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