Friend has scared me about full format.

[vish786]

i had bought a new hdd sata b4 a month or less and have not done full format till now. (partitioned the drive & did quick format).

yesterday one of my friend told me that if we dont do a full format atleast once on new hdd, hard disk will get burnt after few days and he himself has experienced it twice on two of his new system in office.

now my question is should i " full format " my hdd ? is d above thing correct ??
coz i cannot offered to lose d data as it has important data of around 25 - 30 firms. is it necessary to do " full format " ?
he says that only full format makes the sector's more visible(dont hav an appropriate word to explain that).
my friend has put me into this weird dilemma!!!
what should i do. ?

[dOm1naTOr]

Its true to some extend, but there ll be no problem in 99% cases. Full format makes sure dat the HDD's sectors are healthy. Normall there is least chance of sectors of a new HDD be unhealthy.

If u dun wanna do full format, then get O&O defragment tool and do a full defrag and chech the box "defrag empty disk area also". Itll be much faster than defragmenting a fully filled HDD. It just takes less than 10min for, say a 250 GB HDD.

[vish786]

@aravind_n20,

thx for d wonderful reply.

but i dont see their is any relationship between defragmentation making a sector more healthy/clearly visible to an OS, and defragmentation only deals with rearragementing of files and improving speed.

secondly even if i consider, O&O tool is for only fat/ntfs partition what about my linux partitions. ?

[dOm1naTOr]

While degragmentin[may be free space or occupied], the drives head has to pass through the surface and this makes sure dat every sectors in all platers are healthy. And its true dat defragmenting dun make a sector more healthy.

Dun know bout linux......ima gamer, so a windows fan.

trust me, nedays nun of the drives wud have unhealthy partitions when bought new unless it had some external shocks higher dan the treshold.

[vish786]

yup my hdd is brand new one.
okay.... i take that as no need of doing any full format,
thanks problem solved.

[praka123]

dont care.for me,my sata 80GB 3 yrs old runs fine ofcourse with Debian&Ubuntu Linux(see below my avtar) and i dont have the hdd fully formatted.

[Sylar]

Originally Posted by vish786

yesterday one of my friend told me that if we dont do a full format atleast once on new hdd, hard disk will get burnt after few days and he himself has experienced it twice on two of his new system in office.

whoa !!! thats news... i wonder if we were to keep formatting our harddisks how would we keep a backup of the gigabytes of data that we have!! (for me its a ques of terabytes!! )...

Don't worry mate nuthing's gonna happen to ur hdd.. Well do defrag ur windows partitions once in a while to keep things running smoothly.. As far as defragmenting Linux is concerned this link should help you.. http://ubuntuforums.org/archive/index.php/t-262452.html

[dOm1naTOr]

Originally Posted by vish786

yesterday one of my friend told me that if we dont do a full format atleast once on new hdd, hard disk will get burnt after few days and he himself has experienced it twice on two of his new system in office.

No way in this world somethin like dis cud happen coz of not formating an HDD.

@Sylar
He didn't mean to format HD frequently, but to format it when its brnd new nd before instalin an OS.

[vish786]

Originally Posted by aravind_n20

No way in this world somethin like dis cud happen coz of not formating an HDD.

but this has happened coz of not formatting , as the problem was with two separate systems, if it was only with one system then we could have imagined probably fault of fluctuating voltage or something else.

[satyamy]

i dont think u need 2 full format ur HDD
quick format is enough

[saurabh kakkar]

Originally Posted by vish786

i had bought a new hdd sata b4 a month or less and have not done full format till now. (partitioned the drive & did quick format).

yesterday one of my friend told me that if we dont do a full format atleast once on new hdd, hard disk will get burnt after few days and he himself has experienced it twice on two of his new system in office.

now my question is should i " full format " my hdd ? is d above thing correct ??
what should i do. ?

well its a news for me that a new Hdd can burn after some days of full format .

All i can say is generally new Hdd r preformatted so there is no need to full

format them but its a coustom to full format the hdd when its new so as to

give the Hdd proper sectors nd file system that u want .its up to u what u r

satisfied with

[vish786]

@sylar, u understood in a wrong way.

Originally Posted by saurabh kakkar

well its a news for me that a new Hdd can burn in full format .

arre it dint burn while full formatting.

[saurabh kakkar]

^^ sorry my writing mistake edited nd corrected but i hope u have got the point

[dOm1naTOr]

@vish786
nyway im usin both my HDDs without full formating. Till now no probs.
I just full format the drive C while installin for da first time.

read this:
which is better quick format or full format

[Sylar]

Originally Posted by vish786

@sylar, u understood in a wrong way.

yeah yeah.. my bad.. but still ur friend was most probably unlucky to be a victim of a cheap psu, power surge or soaring temps of the hdds..
Even if it happened on two systems, it must have been coincidence, not possible due to not formatting...

[praka123]

Linux filesystem may not need defragging though.

[ax3]

its news 2 me ......... full format @least 1 ........... havent performed it ....


will b doing it rightaway ........

[Nav11aug]

u def dnt need to full frmat... no way.. if it was , every HDD company wud mention so.. or even better do it themselves,

Infact arent HDDs preformatted or smthin like tht?

[Sukhdeep Singh]

I dont think Full format damages your hard drive. Infact i had done it number of times on my OLD PC but not on this new One.

I would love if anyone can prove me wrong with sources

[dOm1naTOr]

@sukhdeepsinghkohli
read the thread carefully..he was tryin to say dat the HDD wud go cr@ppy if we dun do a full format at first use.


Nyways doing full formats frequently too is not gud for HDD life. Doing a full format is a big continuous strain for the head. Its ok if u do it every 6 months or so, but definetely not recomented to do frequently.


@Sylar

i think uve been biten by the PSU bug..u seems to be very enthusiastic in PSU cases.
http://www.thinkdigit.com/forum/show...06&postcount=4
http://www.thinkdigit.com/forum/show...1&postcount=11

[Sukhdeep Singh]

Originally Posted by aravind_n20

@sukhdeepsinghkohli
read the thread carefully..he was tryin to say dat the HDD wud go cr@ppy if we dun do a full format at first use.


Nyways doing full formats frequently too is not gud for HDD life. Doing a full format is a big continuous strain for the head. Its ok if u do it every 6 months or so, but definetely not recomented to do frequently.

Oh sorry, i mis understood the thread. Again i dont think you need to Full format the Hardrive. They are factory formatted.

Manufacturers are not dumb. They will incur losses if HDD goes crap in a few months not to forget BIG LOSS in Compnay's Goodwill. Had it been an Issue, you will see number of threads poping up and special instructions by Manufacturers themselves

[Sylar]

Originally Posted by aravind_n20

@Sylar

i think uve been biten by the PSU bug..u seems to be very enthusiastic in PSU cases.
http://www.thinkdigit.com/forum/show...06&postcount=4
http://www.thinkdigit.com/forum/show...1&postcount=11

Lol ... just trying to help buddy, just trying to help..
btw evrything in the comp has sumthing or the other to do with the PSU so i cant really help it..!!

[vish786]

Originally Posted by praka123

Linux filesystem may not need defragging though.

i didnt know this.... is it necessary to do fsck check ?

[praka123]

fsck is file system check.but defragging is another thing.Windows fs either fat or ntfs fragments with time.this may be the main cause for what is called "windows rot" and the regular format and reinstall of windows every month or two.
OTOH,
Linux ext2/3 or most Linux fs hardly frag more than 10-12%(will take years afaik!).with ext4(online defragging) on the way future seems rocking!
although there is "defrag" utility for ext2fs.there are many links reg ur query.GIYF
http://geekblog.oneandoneis2.org/ind..._defragmenting
http://digg.com/linux_unix/Why_Linux...lar_defragging
Ext4 fs:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ext4
http://ext4.wiki.kernel.org/index.php/Main_Page

[vish786]

@praka123,

i have read that defragment blog earlier itself.
okey, then i'm not doing any more fsck on my hdd, fed up with defragmentation & fsck checks on my hdds.

u make me read so many articles man, & i hav to read all of them. .
Plz dont do that to me, been spending 2 much of time on them lately.