OS and formatting

[jfem]

Hello to everyone.

I just want to know the reason why formatting a PC in Win7/WinVISTA is very very much faster than formatting the same PC in WinXP.

 

[Guest]

Its the way microsoft have packaged the installer and simplified the process, its progress! Also win 7 has so so many more drivers available to it for installation as well as if its connected to the net it will get them automatically if they are available.

Win 7 install 30 min on 7200 hdd
Win vista 42 min on 7200 hdd
Win XP 1.20 hr on 7200 hdd then updates 2+ hrs lol

 

[kyzar]

Does 7 finally realise that you might not live in the USA and let you change it in ONE place only? Having to set your location and then having to set your keyboard and language settings rather than it offering you them based on location has always irritated the crap out of me 😀

 

[The_Prophecy]

Hello to everyone.

I just want to know the reason why formatting a PC in Win7/WinVISTA is very very much faster than formatting the same PC in WinXP.

When you click the button in Windows 7 setup to format any given hard drive, it performs a quick format. When you do a quick format, all that happens on the drive is a wipe of the Master File Table on NTFS volumes (File Allocation Table for FAT16 ad FAT32 formatted volumes) which only consists of a few sectors. With a full format, it wipes the FAT or MFT, and then reads every other sector to ensure they can all still be accessed.

 

[jfem]

So in 7, the setup does a quick format by clicking the format button. How do you do a full format in 7 because I did not see any other choices aside from the format button unlike in XP where you can choose between two types of format?

 

[The_Prophecy]

You can't do a full format from Windows 7 setup. They aren't necessary anyway. I only do them on my drives once every 3 or 4 years.

 

[jfem]

TY for answering, so it isn't necessary. If I may ask, how do you do it once every 3-4 years?

 

[The_Prophecy]

From within Windows. It's never my boot volume.

 

[jfem]

Ok. Thanks to everyone who answered!

 

[jfem]

Best answer selected by jfem.