i think it would quick format instead of normal long sector format.

Serville wrote on Jan 11^th, 2009 at 10:48am:

The classic old-style kind of "formatting" of a disk - from the 1970's and 1980's when MFM and GCR disk controllers were in use - did two-and-a-half things.

On of them, which is still important now, is to lay down the filesystem structures which the operating system uses to lay out the disk and turn the big bag of sectors into structures like directories and files. The structure necessary for this isn't all that large, and doesn't take a lot of space, so this part is quick.

The other main aspect of formatting in the old days is something that is taken care of by the disk hardware these days (except for floppy disks). Every sector on a hard disk is wrapped in a bunch of extra data which is necessary for the disk controller to synchronize clocks with and decode the magnetic pulses coming from the disk heads and turn them into recognizable bits (fields which used to be called sync, address, gap, and so forth). In the old days the magnetic media tended to be completely blank, and so there were special processes needed to write all this initial data to the raw surface so that the normal read/write process could work.

[ As background to this, it's worth while noting that a recorded MFM magnetic signal consists of magnetic changes which needed to be in effect an AC signal, not a DC one, so the recording process for regular data consists of frequency-modulating a carrier signal; the reading process consists of locking on to the carrier for that signal and decoding the modulation. The disk controller hardware for MFM floppy and hard disks took care of discovering the carrier, matching the address field, and then reading or writing MFM-encoded data field. ]

Nowadays for floppy disks this process still exists, but it's long been extinct for hard disks; pretty much since the introduction of the IDE hard disk system in the early 90's, the hard disk read/write hardware is integrated in the disk you buy, and all the necessary formatting has been done. Software in the host machine isn't involved any more in this process, because the way the data is encoded on the disk is completely different to what it used to be.

So, classic "formatting" is now only used for floppy disks, since the technology for those hasn't advanced since the 1980's and which still use MFM recording.

The "half" thing that used to result from software doing the low-level format process is that the low-level format process would result in discovery of damaged, unreadable sections of the media, and the format code could then feed that on to the next stage (the layout of the blank initial filesystem) so that the operating system wouldn't try and use those damaged areas. This is now (except for floppy disks) pretty much a complete waste of time, since the way the integrated controllers in modern hard disks work they have in effect taken care of this too, below the level that operating systems need to be aware of.

So, a "quick" disk format just consists of the one part of this process that is still actually useful these days; laying down a blank filesystem structure.

When Ghost is restoring a filesystem (which involves re-laying it out to fit the disk that you are restoring it to) it recreates all that structure, either by taking the structure in the image and tweaking it for the new disk, or just making up something fresh and copying the files into it. The fine details of this process are different between restoring FAT and NTFS or EXT-type filesystems, but the end result is always the same; a perfectly valid filesystem.

Serville wrote on Jan 11^th, 2009 at 7:52pm:

Actually they really don't. The majority of computer have been manufactured using disk imaging anyway for about a decade now, whether with Ghost or one of the competing products; OEMs in particular cottoned onto the performance benefits of this as soon as Ghost appeared on the market in the mid-90's.

Quick-formatting has also been an option in most OS's for a very very long time, and in effect it's the default for the installation process on most newer OS's from pretty much everyone. For Windows from the command line, use the /q option for the "format" command to get this effect or with the "quick" option to the format script when using the DISKPART command.

Serville wrote on Jan 11^th, 2009 at 7:52pm:

You could, bearing in mind that Ghost 2003 is strictly a home product, for non-commercial use. As a home user, using it to format the odd disk this isn't doing any harm and isn't a problem. However, it's a really bad idea to do this in a business setting without properly licensing one of the business editions of Ghost - there have always been different editions with totally different pricing structures for commercial as opposed to home use.

Serville,
I do love Nigel and his in-depth explanations, although sometimes while reading them I have to get up and stretch, then get another cup of coffee.
(Sorry Nigel)

But, I've been doing PC's for 28 years and I DO remember the olden days of the MFM hard drive and low level formatting them with "Debug".
I guess I'm a dinosaur, a throwback and even a cave man, because when I get a new hard drive I first FDISK it to set up my partitions.  A small one for the OS and a large one for Storage, like Suites and Ghost Image Files.
I use my Windows ME, floppy disk, CD or Flash Drive.

After partitioning, I DO run the DOS format on both partitions, to set up the tracks and sectors and ferret out any bad sectors.
That also exercises the drive and certifies that it's running correctly and not a DOA.

At the end of that (yes, lengthy) process, I'm absolutely sure that the drive is OK to install my OS and programs.
I don't like surprises!

Then when XP Setup asks me if I want it to reformat the HD, I tell it "NO".
XP runs like a scalded dog on a FAT-32 partition.
And that gives me DOS control over every file on my HD.
( I told you that I was a dinosaur! )

*  Only Vista refuses to install to a FAT-32 partition. (NTFS only)

Revisiting the past, I recently dug out my old "Universal IDE Low Level Format" program that's been in my archives for years, and I used it to recover several (so called) BAD hard drives.

One drive, a Seagate 160 gig IDE drive, had a bad sector zero, which Spinrite could not fix.  The low level formatter fixed it.
After the low level format, Spinrite then reported the drive as 100% OK.

The second drive was an old Quantum Fireball with a dozen or more bad sectors.  The low level formatter fixed that too.
Since then, I've low leveled several other drives showing surface errors and the little program fixed them.

It may fly in the face of reason and I can't even get into the technical explanations, , , all I know is that it works.
I never try to argue with success !!!

Cheers Mates!
The Shadow  

Gee!   I don't know if it's freeware or not.
Maxtor put it out for FREE years ago.
Many of the old websites are gone now.
But I did find it here:

http://www.softpedia.com/get/System/Hard-Disk-Utils/HDD-Low-Level-Format-Tool.sh...

What the heck..... give it a try.



Rule #1 for me is to have NO other hard drive connected to the system you're using to do the low level format.  I keep one old computer for stuff like that.  There is NOTHING on there that I'd not be willing to loose.

Nothing is worse than starting a low level format and realizing that you're formatting your main drive.....BY MISTAKE!!!!   Don't do it!!!

good luck,
Shadow  

Thanks so much for your efforts.   Downloading now as I speak.
I don't need it right now, but I guess one more tool in my arsenal of defense is good.