reformatting portable hdd

unclebutcher SG

i need to reformat my portable hdd, what aret he free software that can help me do it? windows formatter is ultra slow…

AndrewPKYap SG

Shocked

ndmmxiaomayi SG

Formatting is slow... how fast you want it to go?

unclebutcher SG

its been stuck at around 5% for 1 hr

AndrewPKYap SG

the problem is with the HDD then, not the formatting program....

AndrewPKYap SG

the problem is with the HDD then, not the formatting program....

AndrewPKYap SG

cool, submit once and get two posts…

ndmmxiaomayi SG

2 questions for you.

1. Total amount of space of the HDD

2. What format options you use (Quick or Full).

unclebutcher SG

69.5GB

Full

Now it says windows cannot complete the format, and cannot detect the hdd. How?????

unclebutcher SG

now the HDD cannot be detected by system. it says one USB device has malfunctioned. What can i do?

ndmmxiaomayi SG

Unplug the HDD, restart the computer, plug it in again.

See if it works.

And try not to run any programs while formatting.

unclebutcher SG

k thanks. quick format took like 20 secs.

whats the diff bwt quick and full format?

kenn3th SG

A quick format deletes entries from the file allocation table and leaves the actual files intact. Because the file addresses are no longer indexed in the file allocation table they get overwritten in time by new files.

A full format physically wipes everything from the drive

ndmmxiaomayi SG

Full format checks and fixes errors as well.