Formatting a Disk

Formatting a disk—including hard disks, USB flash drives and flash memory cards—prepares it so that you can store information on it. Formatting removes all information from the disk, so you should never format a disk that has files you want to keep. When you format a disk, you need to specify the certain settings; Windows has default settings recommended. Capacity is how much data the disk or partition can hold, such as the physical size, storage size, and sector size. A file system is the overall structure in which files are named, stored, and organized. NTFS and FAT32 are types of file systems. Disk allocation unit size, or cluster size, is a group of sectors on a disk. The operating system assigns a unique number to each cluster, and then keeps track of files according to which clusters they use. If your hard disk uses the FAT or FAT32 file system, you can convert it to the NTFS format.

Format a Disk

With a disk in the drive, click the Start button, and then click Computer.

Right-click the drive, and then click Format.

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Specify the capacity, file system, and allocation unit size.

Select the Quick Format check box to perform a quick format, or clear the Quick Format check box to perform a full format and disk scan for bad sectors.

To use a disk to start up your computer and run MS-DOS, select the Create an MS-DOS startup disk check box.

Click Start, click OK to format the disk, and then click OK when it’s done.

Click Close.

Convert a Disk

Click the Start button, point to All Programs, click Accessories, and then click Command Prompt.

Type convert drive :/fs:ntfs /v, and then press Enter.

Where drive is the drive letter of the drive you wanted converted to NTFS.

If you upgraded your computer, type Y, and then press Enter to delete the backup, or type N, and then press Enter to cancel the procedure.

If you’re asked to force a dismount, type N, and then press Enter.

If you need to restart the system to complete the conversion, type Y, and then press Enter.

Click the Close button.

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Click the Start button, point to the Arrow, and then click Shut Down, and then wait for the computer to restart and convert the drive.

Did You Know? You can check the format of a disk. Click the Start button, click Computer, click the disk you want to check, and then check the Details pane.

See Also See “Detecting and Repairing Disk Errors” on page 433 for information on bad sectors.