In recent years, computer literacyThe population has grown somewhat. In any case, many people know about the installation of the operating system and programs, and some people can already deal with their home router, as nothing technical can be achieved from the technical support of the majority of domestic providers.
Of course, such a need is far fromso often, but if a newcomer faces it, there can be a lot of problems. That is why you will certainly be useful to read this article in order to get your own idea of the process.
The essence of formatting. What is it for?
Formatting is the process by whichthere is a marking of the surface of the hard disk. The most basic is low-level formatting, which is done only at the factory. We are also interested in a high-level process that changes logical partitions on disks.
Before formatting a disk with Windows 7,The user must determine the file system type, cluster size, and other technical characteristics of the newly created partition. This should not be disregarded, since the survivability of the carrier and the amount of free space on it depend on these operations.
What is the most optimal cluster size?
In particular, if you specify the maximumpossible cluster size and you will only store text documents on such a disk, then you will not need to spend free space. Suppose you define a volume of 512 KB. That is, writing one text document file of 20 B to disk, you occupy a whole cluster, 99% of which will be wasted.
How to format the system partition?
If you know a little about computers, thenperfectly remember the order of standard preparation of the new section. By its icon, you can right-click and select the "Format" item in the context menu. But there is one problem.
The fact is that the system partition (to whichinstalled system) you can not format it. If you try, a warning will appear that this operation cannot be performed. How to be?
Use the boot disk
Коль уж есть цель узнать, как отформатировать disk with Windows 7, you have to get the boot disk from which you installed the system. If there is none, you need to do it yourself. To do this, you need to burn the downloaded from the network (or personally created) image on the optical disc.
It must be inserted into the drive, restartcomputer, and in the BIOS to set the boot from the CD / DVD drive. How to do this, you will have to find out yourself, since different manufacturers provide different versions of “BIOS” with radically different interfaces.
As a rule, all the information you need should be posted on the motherboard manufacturer's website. So, having learned how to format a disk through the BIOS, you will have to find this information.
So, immediately after booting from the optical driveYou will be taken to the OS installation menu. Since we are talking about Windows 7, even the “greenest” beginners can relax: everything is so clear (almost at the level of intuition) that even a child can cope.
Immediately after the first dialog box appears inIt should select the item "Install". Next, select the desired version of the OS (if you enter the key, the installation program itself will select the necessary). After that, a dialog box working with disks. Having finally understood how to format the system disk, find out its letter in advance, otherwise you can easily lose your entire collection of music or movies.
Since the system itself suggests formatting the disk during installation, in the absence of any experience, it is better to leave the default settings.
Live CD
If you ever dealt withadministration of the system, you probably know about the Live CDs, which in the case of Windows OS are often called BartPE. With such a carrier, you can not only boot from the BIOS, but also get a fully functional system as a result. Since formatting the system disk from under the working OS will not work (this is not Linux, after all), this option may be the only correct one.
Since the system from the “live CD” is loaded intoRAM, you can click on any disk (including the system drive) with the right mouse button, and then select the "Format" item in the context menu. All subsequent actions are no different from those that we have already described in this article.
The same can be done by usinginstallation disk with any Linux distribution. As a rule, they all have a Live CD mode, so you won't have to perform any dances with the console. Ideal is the same Ubuntu, whose interface is as simple and intuitive as possible.
Another variant
But it often happens that on one discinstalled two systems at once. In particular, this happens due to inexperience, when a person mistakenly puts several copies of an identical OS on one physical disk at once.
Так делать нельзя, потому что подобное совмещение may well cause problems when loading and running programs. In addition, the human factor cannot be excluded when users delete the second system files from under the first system. Of course, talking about stable work in the latter case is not necessary.
So how to format a disk with Windows 7 then? Here everything is much easier.
Cleaning through the context menu
To do this, go to "My Computer", and thenselect the disk on which you installed a copy of "Windows" that you do not need. Do not worry about the fact that "under the distribution" gets the Windows, from which you are currently working. We have already indicated that in this case the system itself will not allow you to do this.
Next, click on the section you need.Right-click, and then select "Format" in the menu that appears. A dialog box will also appear in which you should specify the file system type. It all depends on your preferences and requirements.
File system selection
The main (and most reliable) is NTFS, butif necessary, the use of FAT32 is allowed. On the determination of the size of a standard cluster, we have already written above. As for the type of formatting, everything again depends on you.
But!You need to carefully understand how to format an NTFS hard drive. It should be noted that the reliability of this file system is based on the fact that it creates a sufficiently large recovery partition.
In the event that you prepare a disc,the volume of which exceeds the limit of several hundred GB, you can sacrifice this. But mark up so drives of 40 GB and below is not worth it. However, where now you can meet such "dinosaurs"? But if you need to prepare a hard disk of some old computer, then our recommendations will certainly be useful to you.
If you check the box in the “Quick (Clear TOC”) field, the process will not take much time, however, it is still possible that deleted files from the disk can be restored.
We perform cleaning through the "Disk Management"
This method is somewhat more reliable.Having understood how to format the hard disk of Windows 7 by this method, you first need to click on the “Start” button, and in the menu that appears, select the “Control Panel” item. In the panel that opens, look for the “Administration” option.
In the dialog that opens, select the shortcut"Computer Management". The control window of the utility of the same name will open, in which we are interested in the “Memory devices” item. In it, double-click on the "Disk Management" line.
После всех этих манипуляций откроется окно со list of installed storage devices in the system. You select the required disk in it, right click on it. This will open the same context menu in which you should select the “Format” item. With further action you have already been acquainted above.
Using the command line emulator
So we got to the "advanced"method that only the most experienced users use. So formatting a disk with Windows 7 is very convenient and fast, but you need to remember or write down all those commands that we will give you in the text below.
It is best to simply copy them to the clipboard, and then paste them into the command line using the right mouse button (Paste item).
Еще раз обращаем внимание:watch carefully for the drive letter that you need to format. An error can lead to the fact that you lose data that has considerable value (at least for you).
First you need to run the command line emulator.with admin rights. This is done simply. First click on the “Start” button, look for the “Search” field there. In it, you drive in the CMD command, and then press the Enter key. On the right side, a window will open with search results, in which you should right-click the file of the same name, and in the context menu select the “Run as Administrator” option.
Having decided how to format a disk partition withsystem or unnecessary data, first of all write the command format Y :, where instead of Y there should be the letter of the section you need. We repeat once again: make no mistake! There were cases when scattered users lost all archives with a family video.
After that, you need to press the Enter key, afterWhat will complete data formatting. Important! When using the command line emulation mode, there are no warnings about the possible loss of important data in case of an error, so be extremely careful when entering commands!
Something about flash drives
If an external drive asks to format itbefore use, you can also use the command line. All stages of actions are exactly the same, but the main team will have a slightly different look: format Y: / Q. As in the past case, the letter Y is the designation of your disk, which you need to change to the value relevant for your case, and the Q key denotes Quick, which indicates that you have performed a quick format with simple cleaning of the table of contents.
What is it for? The fact is that once again there is no need to carry out a full formatting of flash drives, since this once again reduces the number of rewrite cycles.
