Formatting HDDs

[Natalya1]

ive heard many rumors about formatting your HDDs and i dont know what to believe.

Can formatting your HDD numerous times over a couple of months damage the HDD?

I have no idea, people tell me its bad people tell me its good etc..

so can we set the record straight?

is it ok or is it bad??

 

[setishock]

Doesn't hurt them. Not any more than everyday use.

 

[Kage]

All its doing is moving around files to clean up the system and making files easier to access when the computer needs them, so doing this can't damage the hard drive I wouldn't think, like you moving files round yourself (oh...as long as you don't move critical system files, but I better mention that defragging programs do know what their doing )

I've heard rumours too though, but there is no harm in it I'm sure, like Setishock says.

I would though advise to run in Safemode while doing defrags, as it gives the computer more access to files which it might not be able to move in the standard Windows mode as well as if you switched.

If you don't know how to do this, just simply keep tapping the "del" while the computer is booting up and you'll hopefully get a menu, where you'll be able to select Safe Mode.

I hope this helps

 

[catalyst1]

Hehe, she was talking about formatting, not defragging. But yeah, formatting won't harm your drive at all.

 

[Kage]

opps.... hehe, wel useful information anyway

All formatting does is removes the file table so the harddrive doesnt know the wherabouts of files on the harddrive, so it can basically wipe over existing data with more 0's and 1's so i don't think it'd damage it.

 

[un4given1]

Put it like this... You download a file, say a picture. But then when you're done you want to delete it. It's the same process to delete that, just formatting is just doing that to a lot of images... and everything else as well.

 

[Kage]

hehe, I like the way you said "and everything else as well" lol... Yeah, if you don't back up, your pretty much dead in terms of things.

 

[Natalya1]

ok thanx heaps guys =D

 

[TRDCorolla1]

You generally won't have to reformat that often, hopefully. But it doesn't hurt the drive if you do. I know that you deal with a lot of multimedia files like videos, pictures, music, etc so you'll probably defrag a lot to prevent slowdowns.