An integral part of IT vocabulary, formatting concerns individuals and businesses alike. So don’t be surprised if you hear the term used left and right, because few people actually know what formatting really involves. To impress at the dinner table or to give your equipment a fresh start, discover all the secrets of formatting and data recovery 🙂

What is formatting?

Formatting a hard drive means creating one or more partitions on your device. Formatting initializes the drive by installing a system that structures how files are organized. This operation is carried out at two points :

  • With a new hard drive, to prepare it to store data;
  • With an old one, when you want to delete old data. The formatting deletes everything present on your hard drive : software, applications, data and operating system.

You can format a computer hard drive, an SD memory card, or even a USB flash drive.

Why format a hard drive?

Formatting a hard drive is useful in several cases :

  • Your computer is slow or crashes regularly : Windows and MacOS operating systems aren’t immune to the ravages of time! The more years go by, the more clogged up they get. It’s the fault of all the programs installed along the way. The more loaded the mule, the slower it goes. Thanks to formatting, you completely free up and clean your system and give your machine a fresh new lease of life.
  • Viruses are present : if your computer has also caught a bug, some antivirus programs may not manage to dislodge the intruders. If you want to be certain you’ve gotten rid of the bad elements, format your computer.
  • The storage device is new : internal hard drives aren’t pre-formatted, they need a quick operation to perform at their best. External drives or USB flash drives are often already formatted, but their file system may not suit your needs. For example, the drive is formatted in Fat32 and can’t copy a file larger than 4 GB, which doesn’t work for you. Nothing beats formatting in that case!

What to do before formatting?

If you’re about to take on the big formatting operation, don’t do it without preparing beforehand. Never forget that this operation makes your data inaccessible. To find it again once you’re done, back up your files first. It’s also the perfect time to sort through and delete blurry photos, disappointing movies and the V1 of your 2002 otter-farming folder!

You have three ways to keep your precious data safe :

  1. Keep it simple and copy your files directly to an external drive;
  2. Make it a bit less simple and boot Windows from a bootable USB drive to copy the files to an external drive;
  3. Make it complicated : remove your drive and connect it to another machine.

How do you format a drive?

Formatting with Windows

Now we’re going to get our hands dirty! Roll up your sleeves, follow the instructions to the letter and everything will go fine, soldier.

  • Step 1 : go to My Computer / This PC;
  • Step 2 : select your drive and right-click with your mouse/trackpad;
  • Step 3 : start the formatting.

BUT, if it were that simple, we wouldn’t have bothered writing this. Except you’ll need to choose your file system at the last step. So you don’t click blindly, here’s a quick rundown of the options :

EXFAT

This system has no limitations
It is compatible with Windows, Linux and MacOS (for reading and writing)
It’s the replacement for the FAT32 system

NTFS

It is compatible with Windows and read-only on MacOS, so it’s best suited to the 1st case

FAT32

It is compatible with MacOS and Linux
It is limited to a maximum file size of 4 GB
It is losing popularity, but remains compatible with older hardware
Depending on your system and machine, make the choice best suited to avoid any risk.

The three types of formatting:

Here’s something else: there are several types of formatting! To find out which one to go for, take a look at our diagram below :

Diagram of the 3 types of formatting
  • Type 1 : the storage device is not formatted : the table contains entries and all files are visible;
  • Type 2 : quick formatting. The allocation table is reset to zero. Imagine tearing out the table of contents of a document and replacing it with a blank page. Well, it’s the same thing, but with computer data. Your old files are still present, but they’re no longer linked to your table. As a result, they’ll be overwritten as you go about using the device;
  • Type 3 : full formatting. Here, there’s no more table of contents and no more pages. The allocation table is emptied and all available space has been overwritten with zero characters. After such an action, you cannot recover any files.

How long does formatting take?

As you’ve seen, you can opt either for quick formatting, or for full formatting. Let’s not keep you in suspense, quick formatting takes less than a minute.

Full, low-level formatting can take more or less time. The duration depends on 3 factors :

  • The capacity of the drive (in gigabytes or terabytes);
  • The generation of the interface :
    • With a SATA drive interface : SATA 3 (6 gb/s), SATA 2 (3 gb/s) or SATA 1 (1,5 gb/s) : 120 mbp per second maximum;
    • With a PCI Express interface (SSDs only) x2 or x4 : 600 mb per second;
  • The generation of the SATA interface on the drive’s motherboard, or the generation of the USB connector (for external hard drives).

Simply put, in 2020 and with recent hardware, formatting a 1 TB hard drive connected internally takes about 2 hours. That works out to roughly 500 GB per hour.

What to do in the event of accidental formatting? Can I recover my data?

Did you get carried away, format your drive too fast and realize your mistake a bit too late? Unlike a text message sent to your boss/ex at 3 am, you can turn back the clock and keep your dignity intact.

Ever the gallant knights that we are, we’ve even prepared a summary diagram for you.

Diagram of data recovery possibilities

Step 1 : the story begins with these 12 blue files. They were present on the drive before formatting, just like the allocation table. It is itself located at the start of the drive.

Step 2 : this is where things go wrong : you accidentally format the drive. Your allocation table is emptied, but your files are still present on your drive. The only catch is they’re not visible to the user.

Step 3 : Next, we copy 6 red files.

Step 4 : thanks to suitable software, you recover your data immediately after your accident. The software copies these files onto new hardware. In this case, the data recovery is total since no overwriting has occurred.

Step 4 bis (5 on the diagram): if you recover your data at a later point, our diagram shows you what you’ll get. Your recovery is partial since the files linked to the operating system and internet browsing (shown in green) have overwritten the old files. If overwriting has occurred, the bad news is that your data is permanently lost.

What should you take away from this explanation? Recovering your data after a formatting is possible under two conditions :

  • The formatting was quick;
  • You have used your device little or not at all since the data loss.

Expert advice

Expert advice

It is therefore important NOT TO USE the device and NOT TO COPY files onto the device that suffered the data loss. Always use an external storage method to copy the recovered files. The more you use a device after a loss, the more degraded the result will be. On the other hand, choose a paid recovery software if you want a good result.

Formatting now holds no more secrets for you! Whenever you’re in doubt, refer back to the steps and diagrams covered here. Keep in mind, formatting, when done properly, can be very worthwhile, whatever the device and context. If you’ve formatted your device and can no longer recover your data, you can still turn to our services.

Need help? Contact our team