Low level format vs regular windows formatting?

[Chris_961]

Dear all

I'm going to be performing a few upgrades, to a family members computer tomorrow.

I have backed up their data and I would like to format their old hard drive.

The hard drive has begun to re allocate sectors, and other than the data I have already backed up, they are not looking to keep their old installation of windows. (Therefore there is no need to defragment the drive, right?)

I realise that the drive will fail, in the near, or near-distant future. Regardless of this I wanted to know if a low level format would be better than a format through windows?

I was planning, to perform the low level format, using either the Samsung or Seagate Hard drive health checker utility.

Alternatively I could format the hard drive normally with Windows (during the installation of Windows 10, or after using disk manager)

I'm also aware there are windows utilities and command prompt options to write zero's to the drive.

The wipe does not need to be super secure, so one pass will do (and any alternative method which completes one pass) However, the format (of whatever variety) does need to address the re allocating / pending (which I know can't necessarily be fixed, but at least pending sectors can be sorted out right?)

Please provide with with advice on the best route to take? Will I get away with simply deleting windows partitions and then formatting the drive during installation? Or should I get more involved?

 

[jankerson]

The best thing to do is replace the drive that is reallocating sectors NOW then trash the drive.

Once the drive starts showing problems it's on it's way out.

 

[USAFRet]

"Low level format" is a long dead concept.
Todays equivalent is just writing all zeros to the drive. The Seagate SeaTools can do that.

But just deleting all the partitions during the OS install is fine.

However, the drive IS dying. Prepare to replace soonest.

 

[Chris_961]

"Low level format" is a long dead concept.
Todays equivalent is just writing all zeros to the drive. The Seagate SeaTools can do that.

But just deleting all the partitions during the OS install is fine.

However, the drive IS dying. Prepare to replace soonest.

Thanks @jankerson and thanks again @USAFRet I will tell the owner of the drive about it (failing) and wait to see what he will do.

I can't throw it away because it is not mine.

Based upon what you have said I think ill just write zero's to the drive and then install Windows on the SSD, That i've bought for him. I'll configure mass storage to the HDD after, warning him of the problems and instructing him to back up with Dropbox, one drive, google drive e.c.t

I am adding in an SSD but it's only 120GB (Just for the OS and a few programmes) all mass storage was supposed to be on that drive.

I'll tell him its his risk that he is taking with his data, didn't really anticipate him sinking another 50 dollars into the build, as his budget is tight.

 

[jankerson]

"Low level format" is a long dead concept.
Todays equivalent is just writing all zeros to the drive. The Seagate SeaTools can do that.

But just deleting all the partitions during the OS install is fine.

However, the drive IS dying. Prepare to replace soonest.

Thanks @jankerson and thanks again @USAFRet I will tell the owner of the drive about it (failing) and wait to see what he will do.

I can't throw it away because it is not mine.

Based upon what you have said I think ill just write zero's to the drive and then install Windows on the SSD, That i've bought for him. I'll configure mass storage to the HDD after, warning him of the problems and instructing him to back up with Dropbox, one drive, google drive e.c.t

I am adding in an SSD but it's only 120GB (Just for the OS and a few programmes) all mass storage was supposed to be on that drive.

I'll tell him its his risk that he is taking with his data, didn't really anticipate him sinking another 50 dollars into the build, as his budget is tight.

It's either replace the drive or lose all of his data.

Doing the same thing to one of my drives now, it's got over 40K hours on it etc.

It was Windows 7 Pro so I just cloned the drive so I wouldn't have to go through the endless update process.

 

[RolandJS]

Whoever is keeping a problematic HD had better keep a few current, restorable, full image backups onto external media -- a restoration will be in the future.