What is the difference between low level formatting and formatting?

Ordinary formatting of a hard drive will not affect the life of the hard drive. Formatting is divided into high-level and low-level formatting. Advanced Format is just to erase the data on the hard disk, generate boot information, initialize the FAT table, mark logical bad sectors, etc.

The low-level formatting is to divide the hard disk into cylinders and tracks, and then divide the tracks into several sectors, and each sector is divided into identification part ID, spacer, gap and data area. Low-level formatting is a job that precedes high-level formatting, and each hard drive is low-level formatted before it leaves the factory. Low-level formatting is a lossy operation that has a negative impact on the life of the hard drive.

The formatting under Windows that we usually use (including the formatting used under DOS) is actually advanced formatting.

For new hard drives purchased in recent years, formatting operations, including high and low bars, will not affect their lifespan.

Compared with the past, the physical structure of the hard disk has undergone some changes, which directly affects the changes in the implementation of the corresponding hard disk instructions, the most important of which is the change of the formatting instructions caused by the change of the hard disk seeking mode. At present, the user can access the converted logical sector, not the actual physical sector corresponding to the physical head. As a result, the user is virtually unable to operate the hard drive in the physical sense.

The so-called low-level formatting now is nothing more than zeroing and redirecting bad sectors, and it does not regenerate the hard drive, nor does it have a physical repair function.

For commonly used advanced formatting, "Quick Format" simply resets the hard disk partition table, and even "full formatting" simply resets all sectors in addition to resetting the hard disk partition table. It can be seen that the formatting instructions run by the user are not fundamentally different from other ordinary read and write operations, and in the whole life of the hard disk, the number of such reads and writes can only be measured in astronomical numbers, and the number of formatting or ghost operations is completely negligible. According to the current hard drive manufacturing technology, it is very rare for a hard drive to be damaged simply because of read and write in ordinary applications, and most hard drive failures are related to external physical collisions, sudden power outages during read and write, and circuit damage.

Therefore, the only thing to consider in formatting is to avoid the above situations.

Low-level formatting is to divide the blank disk into cylinders and tracks, and then divide the tracks into several sectors, and each sector is divided into identification part ID, interval gap and data area. As you can see, low-level formatting is a pre-high-level format, and it can only be done in a DoS environment. Moreover, low-level formatting can only be used for a single hard drive, not a single partition.

Each hard drive is already low-level formatted by the drive manufacturer at the factory, so users usually don't need to do low-level formatting again. In fact, the full format we perform on a floppy disk is a low-level format.

It is important to point out that low-level formatting is a lossy operation that has a negative impact on the life of the hard drive. Therefore, many hard disk manufacturers recommend that users do not use this trick as a last resort. When the hard disk is affected by external strong magnets, strong magnetic fields, or due to long-term use, the magnetic record of the sector format divided by low-level formatting on the hard disk platter is partially lost, resulting in a large number of "bad sectors", the "sectors" can be re-divided by low-level formatting.

However, this is provided that the platter of the hard drive is not physically scratched.

1. Formatting can be done by the operating system, while low-level formatting must be done by professional software.

2. Low-level formatting is initial for global data, while high-level formatting is only for a certain partition. Today's hard drives have been formatted at a low level. The hard disk formatting before installing the system is advanced formatting.

First, the main difference between the two is the difference in formatting speed, hard disk formatting is what we often call low-grid, and the speed of fast format is much higher than low-grid.

Second, quick format can be used to recover deleted files using related software, while low format cannot. Quick format is only a simple deletion of data files on the hard disk, while the low grid time is slow, the hard disk needs to be re-divided and clustered, and the data is extremely difficult to recover.

Third, format the hard disk, fast format is better than low format, fast format not only formatted fast, but also will not scan the entire hard disk sector, to a certain extent to reduce the damage to the hard disk. The low grid is a complete scan of the hard disk, the time is slow, and there is a certain amount of wear and tear on the hard disk, but if the hard disk has bad sectors, it is recommended to carry out the low grid.

First, the reference is different

1. Low-level formatting: It is used to refer to the operation of dividing cylinders, tracks, and sectors of a disk.

2. Advanced formatting: Also known as logical formatting, it refers to writing specific data in a specific area of the disk according to the file system selected by the user (such as FAT12, FAT16, FAT32, NTFS, EXT2, EXT3, etc.).

Second, the characteristics are different

1. Low-level formatting: The low-level formatting of floppy disks is usually supported by the system. Normally, the formatting operation of a floppy disk consists of two parts: a low-level formatting operation and a high-level formatting operation.

2. Advanced formatting: an operation to initialize the disk or disk partition and clear all files in the original disk or disk partition.

Third, the role is different

1. Low-level formatting: The operation of creating a sector of the hard disk to make the hard disk have storage capacity.

2. Advanced formatting: including the rewriting of the corresponding area of the partition table in the master boot record, and setting aside a piece of disk space for file management such as file allocation table and directory table in the partition according to the file system selected by the user, so that the user can use the partition to manage files.

For example, if you compare a hard disk to a piece of paper, formatting is the square on the printing paper, data is the words written on it with a pencil, advanced formatting is to erase the words on it with an eraser, but the grid does not move, and low-level formatting is to kill all the squares on it and redraw it.

Low-level formatting is generally not used! The plate is no problem, no need for a low grid!

Categories: Computer Network >> Operating System System Fault Analysis: To put it simply, high-level formatting is formatting related to the operating system, and low-level formatting is formatting that is not related to the operating system.

Advanced format is mainly to format the tracks of each partition of the hard disk and divide the tracks logically. For advanced formatting, different operating systems have different formatter procedures, different formatting results, and different track division methods. The low-level formatting is the physical formatting, which is mainly used to divide the magnetic cylinder of the hard disk, establish the number of sectors, and select the sector spacing ratio.

The hard disk needs to be formatted at a low level before it can be formatted at an advanced level, and the hard disk that has just left the factory has already undergone a low-level format, so there is no need for users to format it at a low level.

For example, if you have too many bad sectors on your hard drive, which often leads to errors in accessing data, or even if the operating system is simply unusable, then you need to perform a low-level format. In addition, if some parameters related to low-level formatting on your hard disk are corrupted by viruses, such as the hard disk interval factor, then you have to perform low-level formatting to re-establish these parameters.

Many motherboards provide the function of low-level format in the CMOS, generally in the HDD Low Level Format option, if you have this option on your motherboard, you can directly use the Hard Disk Low Level Format Utility for low-level format. There are also many motherboards that do not have a low-level formatting function, if this is the case, then you are better off using the hard disk management and low-level formatter provided by the hard drive manufacturer. There are also general low-level formatters, such as DM (Disk Manager), PC Tools, etc., if your hard drive is relatively standard, you can also use these tools for low-level formatting.

Formatting, low-level formatting is formatting that is not related to the operating system.

Advanced Format and Low-Level Format Formatting actions can be divided into two types: high-level format and low-level format. Floppy disks only have advanced formatting; And hard disks not only have advanced formatting, but also low-level formatting actions. Low-level formatting is based on the track of the hardware to work, this formatting action is done before the hard disk partition and advanced formatting, usually the average user does not do this action.

Unless otherwise specified, the actions of general formatting refer to advanced formatting. In the MS-DOS operating system, we can use the format command to format hard disks and floppy disks, for example, if you want to format a disk slice in disk drive A:, and put the boot file into the disk, use 'format A:'

s' command, while in the Windows operating system, the formatting action is performed by the 'explorer' (right-click on the disk name --> format ......)."Formatting is usually done by writing data from the boot sector at the beginning of the disk, recording the volume label at the root, reserving some space for the file allocation table (FAT), and checking for corrupted sectors on the disk, and if so, marking the file allocation table with a corrupted mark (usually with a capital "b" for "bad") indicating that the sector is not used to store data. Note:

Before Advanced Formatting, we usually had to specify partitions for disk drives, which is the process of dividing a physical disk drive into partitions so that different operating systems use different partitions, or into logical disk drives, an action called "disk partitioning".

Clearing the hard disk means that all sectors of the hard disk are written with 0 or all with 1, and then all the data on the hard disk is lost, and even the partitions are gone, just like when they were newly bought. There are two ways to clear zero: 1Fill the entire disk with 1 all 2

Fill the entire disk with 0 Generally, the second type of zeroing is mostly used The main clearing tools are dm, wipeinfo, diskredactor, and eraser Since the zeroing is all filled with 0 or all with 1, it does not harm the hard disk.