The low-level formatting process is that sectors and tracks are applied to the surface of the hard disk. Thus, servo marks are applied to the magnetic surface, which are used to position the disc heads as service information. This process is carried out on special equipment servo byter.
Reasons for formatting a hard disk partition
Again, your product occupies the upper mark. That is, for the first time you install a new hDD, get rid of errors from the disk, trying to eliminate an unpleasant virus, as well as before selling your computer. There are only a few situations where one can take the format hard drive.
Formatting a hard disk is a simple and useful method for quick cleaning data. At the same time, it can help to remove viruses, solve storage problems and even difficult to solve problems. So learning how to format a hard disk partition is an important skill for computer users. Well, it's quick and easy, as long as you know how to act.
At home, hold a high-grade low-level hard disk formatting disk is almost impossible. Therefore, it is customary to assume that such a specific measure is performed once in the factory by the manufacturer. But in order to mimic this process at home, there are many different ways, for example, to carry out operation from under DOS, by means of an installation flash card or to make processing by the special program.
Take time to find out what you have on the computer that you do not want to lose. Then you have to do backup copy data and information on the hard disk before the formatting process. However, in some cases this will not be possible if the virus causes serious damage to the system.
In most cases, if you are preparing before formatting a hard disk partition, you can back up and copy data from the hard disk. First of all, you need to download the software to format the hard disk.
But before you look for yourself the most acceptable way that homemade low-level formatting can do, you need to determine the main reasons for doing it:
- Prevent the leakage of sensitive or sensitive information. This process completely destroys all the information contained on the device, while the usual removes data only from the first sector.
- Blocking sectors of the hard drive that were damaged. Damage may be caused by mechanical shock or thermal shock. The information is not stored on the damaged areas.
Working with an auxiliary program
In order to make this operation easier, you can download a program that carries the name HDD LOW LEVEL FORMAT TOOL. This utility is used not only to format hard drives. It also works with various interfaces and it can be deleted from the USB flash drive. This program works as follows:
Then enter a section label and select file system. As for the cluster size, it is better to use the default value. Too small or too large always has a drawback more or less. Remember that the format of an existing disk will delete all information, so first copy the necessary files or information to another safe place. Thus, this is not only a function of the hard drive format, but also the function of cleaning the partition, deleting the partition, etc.
- It is necessary to start the program and in the appeared window to note Continue for free.
- After that, another window will appear, in which there will be a list with all devices.
- When the disc is selected, the window will change and information will appear in it. For low-level formatting you need to make a choice FORMAT THIS.
- Now the utility will start the process, but before it will issue a message that will remind the user of the irrevocability of the data. To continue, you must agree.
- After low-level formatting it is necessary to make the usual (quick) through "My Computer" and choose the type of file system there.
Formatting with the popular utility Victoria
In addition to the narrow specification program, in order to perform low-level formatting, you can use a utility with a wider range of actions. One of these utilities is Victoria. The capabilities of Victoria are quite extensive and one of the abilities is low-level formatting.
Low-level formatting refers to the true process of formatting a disk. It creates a physical format by assigning a place where the data is stored on the disk. This low-level format is performed at the factory, whereas tools such as this fill zero.
Make your hard drive as good as the new one
It completely and irreversibly erases all data from your disk. The main reason for this is an attempt to revive an infected or corrupted hard drive. Low-level formatting also hides damaged sectorsto create a clean and unmistakable surface for your data.
You can work with Victoria in several ways, namely to download from a disk, floppy disks, flash drives or to download and install directly to the hard drive of your computer. In order to use the first three methods, on the drives you need to create a bootable package of files that runs on the computer under DOS.
For Victoria to work in the existing operating system, you must first download the program from the official site. To install the program on the device, you need to run the file victoria43.exe on behalf of the administrator.
Careful information displayed in an intuitive interface
The interface of the application is quite simple and simple. It provides detailed information about the selected device, such as model, firmware version, serial number or buffer size, as well as physical parameters, security functions, or queues. In this section, you can also check the temperature of the equipment.
Support for a large number of brands and models
However, you need to make sure that the target device is connected for the first time, because the application can not automatically detect new disks and is not equipped with an upgrade option.In the opened window there will be several tabs in which the program analyzes all available hard disks. But in order to permanently delete data by the program victoria, on the hard drive, you first need to identify the areas that were damaged. The "Test" tab can help. Scanning will identify the damaged sectors, and in order to get rid of them you need to run a re-scan, but at the same time set the Write mode. In the Victoria utility, this mode is responsible for irrevocable removal (mashing) the information.
This can cause your faulty drive to start working again until the problems encountered have nothing to do with its mechanical integrity. When you plan to sell your computer or transfer it to someone else, you may not think first how harmful it is. Of course, you can format the hard disk, assuming that all the data on it is deleted and that no one can retrieve your data.
Formatting SSDs
In reality, however, everything is slightly different. When you delete a file or format a hard disk or some other medium, you do not delete anything at all. All formatting the disk or deleting the file means that the previously occupied disk space was free. This means that other data may overwrite it in the future. Eventually, deleted data will be overwritten so many times that it will become completely irretrievable. However, one format or delete is nothing.
Deleting data via DOS
But in order to format the hard drive at a low level, it is not necessary to use an extraneous program with complex control. It can be done through DOS - with the help of the installation disk with the operating system.
- If you have a bootable disk with Windows XP, first start its installation. During the installation, all hard disks and their partitions will be offered, which can be formatted in DOS mode.
- When installing a system with the boot disk with the Vista OS wait, when the system will offer a choice of a disk or its partition. After that, you need to open the "Disk Configuration" window.
- If you do not need to change the file system and other hdd settings, you can click the "Format" button.
When formatting in DOS mode is finished, the system notifies the user and the computer will need to be rebooted.
What is low-level formatting?
You must erase the hard disk data. Today, we use our computers for a variety of purposes, including online banking and online shopping. This means that you are likely to have financial information stored on your computer. In addition to this, you probably will have many other data stored on your computer that you would not like to get into the wrong hands. When someone else has access to your hard drive, formatted or not, they can theoretically access this data.
To low-level formatting it is necessary to approach responsibly in order not to do much harm to the system. At the same time it does not matter how exactly the operation will be performed through DOS, from a flash drive or with the help of a program. In addition, it should be remembered that such a process completely and permanently removes all the information accumulated on the hard drive, so before starting it is worth saving a disk image for a quick recovery.
To do this, you do not even need to be particularly clever for the computer. Software for recovery, designed to recover deleted data, nowadays, and, of course, it does not use the expert computer user to recover deleted data.
Low-level formatting of the hard disk and solid state drives Western Digital
All data stored on your hard drive is stored as numbers; and zeros. Overwriting these digital data will one day make it extremely difficult and in many cases impossible to recover data. Rewriting old data several times makes recovery impossible, even using the most advanced methods.
Greetings!
In certain situations, it becomes necessary to produce a low-level hDD formatting (hard disk), for example, formatting it at a low level, will be irrevocably (without the possibility of recovery including special utilities) deleted data on it. This can be useful in a situation where you want to sell a computer, but you do not want to have even a theoretical probability of recovering data that was once on the hard disk.
About file system formats
The program will display information about your hard disk and all its partitions. It can erase all partitions, including any hidden partitions that are not displayed in your operating system. Please read the following information if you are. Before you follow the instructions for formatting the hard disk, check the file system formats supported by your computer.
How to format the hard drive with Active Partition Manager
Follow these steps to format and partition the storage device. Caution: Formatting erases the entire disc. Note. The documentation for the operating system. To create new section, right-click the volume and select "New Simple Volume", Follow the instructions on the screen to create a new simple volume. All attached storage devices, partitions or images on the hard disk are displayed in the left column. Click Delete and confirm the selection in the pop-up window.
- Right-click the computer and select Manage.
- In the Computer Management window, select Disk Management.
- Click on the "Delete" tab.
- In the drop-down box, select the format.
- Enter the name of the volume.
Also, with the help of low-level formatting, you can try to "cure" the available ones on the hard disk bad sectors.
In the process of low-level formatting, bad sectors (so-called bad blocks) are marked as unusable. However, it is worth remembering that this procedure is not a panacea from the appearance of new bad-blocks in the process of using a hard disk.
With free download for secure removal information carriers, on the one hand, are recognized bad sectors and all data is deleted, on the other hand, without any residue. There are several ways to format the hard disk. Within the production process of data carriers, some useless areas are created, the so-called defective sectors. They would be irretrievably lost, as they were no longer read. This is followed by the usual formatting used today, and a logical file system is created based on these tracks and sectors.
In general, it is worthwhile to take as a rule - if the disk began to "fail" and unreadable blocks (bad blocks) appeared on it, then there is a risk eventually to lose all the data on it at the same time.
If the drive is under warranty, then immediately return it - this is a warranty case. If the warranty has passed, then after the "treatment", store on it only not particularly important data, for example, movies and music.
Perform low-level formatting and secure data deletion
In addition, they promise perfect handling of carriers, as well as all other manufacturers. The complex technical process described above becomes free for a simple finger exercise. However, the execution should be done with care: after low-level formatting of the hard disk, all data will be guaranteed to disappear - regardless of whether they want it or not. Do you want this, you should definitely ask in advance. However, the interface of the program leaves almost no questions.
If we talk about Flash-drives (flash drives), then the procedure of low-level formatting can in some cases revive the "bad" data carrier.
For SSD drives This formatting method is not recommended. To work with this type of media, fundamentally different solutions are used.
Low Layer Format HDD LLF Low Level Format Tool
Despite the fact that there are enough programs of this kind, including some official applications from HDD manufacturers and Flash drives, I still recommend using one of the best universal utilities of this kind - HDD LLF Low Level Format Tool.
In the first window, after starting the program, the desired hard disk is selected, from which the data must be safely deleted. After clicking the "Continue" button, various details are now available on the hard disk. Here, experienced users can see whether a low-level format can achieve the desired result. Subsequently, the confirmation of all data ends with a digital nirvana.
Deleting data via DOS
Low-level formatting is used to restore sectors of the hard disk, as it was in the factory. This is often used, for example, when some sectors of the hard disk fail, since their re-alignment is usually restored, and the hard disk can work without problems. It is also important to use it when you are going to sell a hard disk or handle the warranty of this, since the data is completely eliminated and can not be recovered.
This utility differs from similar simplicity of management and ease with which it implements low-level formatting of hard disks, flash cards and drives. Thanks to a simple and intuitive interface, the development of this utility is under the power and the beginning user.
This is not the first time a user sells a hard drive formatted by a disk manager, and when he arrives at the destination, he receives personal data from the seller. We can download this tool for free from the author's site. After downloading, if we have a normal version, we install it on our computer like any application. If we have a portable version, we will run it, and we will see a window where we will be asked to pay for the program for the best formatting speed and free updates for life.
To do this, select "Continue for free". On the next screen, we'll see 3 tabs with various information. In the first, we see a summary of all the information on the disk. To start formatting, we must select the "Low-level format" tab. On this tab you can see a warning that the data will be completely eliminated. We have the option to "execute a fast format", which allows us to perform a fast format, but does not completely delete the data. Disk formatting will begin.
The utility is paid, but in free mode the program runs in full-function mode with one exception: the maximum speed of low-level formatting is 50 MB / s.
For example, in free mode of operation utilities HDD LLF Low Level Format Tool low-level formatting HDD driveand the volume of 640 GB lasted about 2 hours. Sometimes, however, the speed dropped significantly below the claimed 50 MB / s.
Already our data can not be obtained from the device. This will work when they have a lot of viruses on the computer, what happened to me and can no longer use it. To do this, they are going to copy all the data they want, that they are on their computer, in a pen or on a CD. Once this is done, they will be downloaded all, and when they are at the table, they will search all their data and copy them. When they find this, they will get a "first boot device"," Second boot device "," third boot device ".
Main features:
- supports work with media connected via: IDE, SATA, USB, SCSI, Firewire;
- are supported by HDD drives: Seagate, Western Digital, Hitachi, Maxtor, Samsung and others.
- low-level formatting of USB and Flash-cards (through the card reader) is supported.
With low-level formatting, all data on the disk will be irretrievably destroyed! The program supports working with disks, which are connected including USB and Firewire interface. In other words, you can implement low-level formatting and try to bring back even classic USB flash drives.
With low-level formatting from the disk, the MBR, partition table, will be deleted. An attempt to recover data from a disk formatted in this way is unlikely to be successful even when accessing a service that specializes in data recovery. In this regard, be extremely careful and cautious when working with this software.
In what cases is low-level formatting applied
Most often, low-level formatting is resorted to for the following reasons:
- As already mentioned above, one of the most common reasons is getting rid of errors and "treating" the hard drive. In the process of low-level formatting, bad (unreadable) blocks are marked as bad blocks and excluded from subsequent use. This to some extent increases the reliability of SATA or IDE hard drive and increases its service life.
- There was a need to reliably destroy (without the possibility of recovery) the available data on the hard disk data, for example, for its sale separately or as part of the entire computer. However, for this task it is better and more correct to use the appropriate solution - for, for.
- Sometimes this method is used to completely destroy various kinds of viruses and malicious elements (prescribing themselves in the boot area, etc.), from which it is difficult to get rid of in another way.
- In some cases, the need for low-level formatting arises from the Linux operating system to Microsoft Windows.
- In some cases, this procedure helps to "revive" the failed USB flash drive. For example, when it is impossible to write anything on it and format it with standard tools in Windows, it does not work either.
- When you connect a new drive, although in this situation it is often quite normal formatting.
Low-level formatting of Flash disk (flash drive) \\ HDD
Important nuances:
1) The hard disk (HDD) is formatted exactly according to the same principle as the flash drive shown in the example.
And yes, the flash drive is the most common, made in China. The reason for low-level formatting: when connected, it stopped displaying in the system. but program HDD LLF Low Level Format Tool found it, and it was decided to try to "cure" it.
2) Perform low-level formatting is possible under both Windows and DOS, however with some caveats. A fairly common mistake, especially among novice users, is an attempt to format the disk from which the operating system was booted. In other words, if you have a single hard drive installed on your computer and it is installed on it, for example, operating system Windows - then to directly format this disk you need to boot other media, for example, Live-CD. Or you can connect your HDD drive to another computer (or laptop) and from there to produce low-level formatting.
With the nuances we have finished, now we will consider the very process of low-level formatting using the utility HDD LLF Low Level Format Tool.
There are two versions of this utility - the first one requires installation, and the second one is portable (working without installation). Choose the most optimal option for you.
1) After the program is launched, a window with a greeting and a suggestion to register it will be displayed. The free use case differs from the paid one only in that low-level formatting does not occur at full speed. Agree that this procedure for formatting has to be resorted not so often, and therefore often enough and free use case. To continue working with the program, click on the button Continue for free , that in free translation means continue for free.
2) Next, you will see a window in which all the connected drives found by the program will be listed. Keep in mind that the designation of disks here occurs in a special way: for the place of the usual C: \\ .. D: \\ etc. in the window are displayed directly physical disks. And, accordingly, you need to navigate here by the name and volume of the drive.
To continue, you must select the desired drive and press the button Continue \u003e\u003e\u003e (continue).
3) The result should be a window in which there will be three tabs. In the Device details tab, you can highlight information about the drive you have selected, and in the S.M.A.R.T. tab. learn the health status of the drive. The low-level formatting procedure is launched in the tab LOW-LEVEL FORMAT.
After opening this tab, click on the button located there FORMAT THIS DEVICE (format this device).
Note: when checking the box Perform Perform wipe .. - For the place of low-level formatting, the usual formatting will be performed.
4) Next, a warning appears, the essence of which is that all data on the media will be permanently deleted during the formatting process. Check, just in case, again, if there are any important data on the drive. If there are none, click the appropriate button to start the procedure.
5) The low-level formatting process starts. During this period, you can not disconnect or remove the flash drive \\ disk, try to open the media in the file manager and all the more something to try to write to it at the time of formatting. It is best not to run any resource-intensive programs and applications during this period and do not use the computer at all until the formatting is finished.
When the progress bar reaches 100%, the formatting is completed. You can close the program.
Important nuance: the time for which the drive will be formatted depends on several factors: the operating mode of the utility (paid or free), as well as the state of the disk itself. If it has a lot of errors (unreadable sectors), then the process will take some time and will have to wait ...
After the low-level formatting, all information on the disk will be deleted, the tracks and sectors will be marked out, some official and technical information will be recorded. Naturally, you can not go to this disc yet, and most of the programs you will not see it either. This disc requires a high-level formatting procedure, during which a file table is created, etc.
In order to perform high-level formatting, you can take advantage of the regular feature that offers an operating windows system. Just go to My computer (This computer) and right click on the required disk (if, of course, it is visible), and in the displayed context menu select item Format… In particular, the flash drive used in the review began to appear in the system after the "treatment".
In the displayed window it will be necessary to select the file system: for HDD (hard disks) this is exclusive NTFS, and for flash drives it is quite possible to choose and FAT (assuming that you will not attempt to write a file larger than 4 GB on it). 
If desired, you can enter a volume label. Then click on the button To begin.
At the end of this procedure, you can reuse your data medium. However, never forget to make a backup copy of the data, especially from the media, which made you doubt your reliability.
Short summary
In this article, we examined in detail the procedure for low-level formatting, the reasons for this operation were announced.
After reading it, you now know how to make low-level formatting of the hard disk or flash drive (including that connected through the card reader).
If you have any questions, you can ask them in the comments.
