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Format Page:
Formatting is the process of writing marks on the magnetic media that are used
to mark tracks
and sectors. Before a disk is formatted, its magnetic surface is a complete mess of
magnetic
signals. When it is formatted, some order is brought into the chaos by essentially drawing
lines
where the tracks go, and where they are divided into sectors. The actual details are not
quite
exactly like this, but that is irrelevant. What is important is that a disk cannot be used
unless it
has been formatted. The terminology is a bit confusing here: in MS-DOS, the word
formatting is
used to cover also the process of creating a filesystem. There, the two processes are
often
combined, especially for floppies. Where the distinction needs to be made, the real world
Unix
techies call formatting (low-level formatting, while making the filesystem is called
high-level
formatting) and we combine the two and call it formatting.
Ok, you've learned that your platter (disk) is a mass storage device generally made of
metal,
covered with a thin layer of iron oxide of which has good magnetic properties.
Computers record data in bits, 8 bits to a byte and 512 bytes to a sector. The Windows OS
knows where all your stuff is at upon request. Even the smallest hard drive can store
millions of
bits and must be organized---called (formatting).
First, a hard drive has to be physically formatted before it can be logically formatted.
This
(low-level) formatting is done by the drive manufacturer and divides the platter into
tracks, sectors
and cylinders----these are called physical elements.
Tracks are circular paths around your disk and are identified by a number starting with
(0) at
the outer edge. The set of tracks that lie at the same distance from the center on all
sides of all
platters are called a cylinder. Tracks are divided into areas called sectors.
Sectors are usually formatted to contain 4096 bits or 512 bytes. After this physical
format--it's
ready for logical formatting.
Logical formatting places a file system on your disk and a file system allows an operating
system like (Windows-95) to use this space to store and retrieve files. So, this is what
you do is a logical formatting using it's operating utility.
This means you can format a drive and use it right away for a storage container like a
back-up data area or what ever.
A disk can be divided into partitions and then formatting is
applied.
After you partition and format---it's called a (volume). This is why you should give it a
name or (label) so you can identify it.
So, you now (hopefully) understand why you have to format. Now, let's look at the four
basic
commands (without getting into all the other switch's).
FORMAT = places a file system on the disk for storage or a operating system.
FORMAT /s = prepares a partition or disk to make it active or bootable.
FORMAT /mbr = creates a new boot sector and should only be used as a last resort.
FORMAT /U = Does a unconditional format, so do the SYS C: to get system files --
then a through scandisk to fix any errors.
NOTE: Almost all manufactures of hard drives (these days) come formatted and most will
come
with a program disk for formatting, partitioning and moving your system from your old hard
drive
to the new one.
Also, Partition Magic 3 makes it easy to do both at the same time and there's a lot of
scenario's
about cluster size with partitions with FAT. Click here for FAT explained and click here
for
Partition Magic.
Have Fun Formatting
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