In recent years, computer literacy has grown slightly. In any case, many people know about the installation of the operating system and programs, and some can figure out their own home router themselves, as there is nothing sensible to get from technical support from most domestic providers.
But still, the vast majority of users do not know anything about the computer that would be more difficult to spend time on social networks. In particular, if there are any serious programmatic failures that can only be resolved by a complete reinstall of the OS, they do not have a clue about how to format a Windows 7 drive.
Of course, such a need arises far not so often, but if a beginner encounters it, then there can be a lot of problems. That is why it will probably be useful for you to read this article in order to create your own idea of ​​the process.
The essence of formatting. What is it for?
Formatting is the process by which the surface of a hard disk is marked up. The most basic is low-level formatting, which is done only at the factory. We are interested in a high-level process that changes logical partitions on disks.
Before formatting a disk with Windows 7, the user must determine the type of file system, cluster size, and other technical characteristics of the newly created partition. This should not be neglected, since the survivability of the carrier and the amount of free space on it depend on these operations.
What is the best cluster size?
In particular, if you set the maximum possible cluster size and store only text documents on such a disk, then you should waste your free space. Suppose you define a volume of 512 KB. That is, writing only one file of a text document to 20 B on disk, you occupy a whole cluster, 99% of which will be wasted.
How to format a system partition?
If you are a little versed in computers, then remember perfectly well the standard procedure for preparing a new section. You can right-click on its icon and select the “Format” item in the context menu. But there is one problem.
The fact is that you cannot format the system partition (on which the system is installed). If you try, a warning appears that this operation is not possible. How to be?
We use a boot disk
Since there is a goal to learn how to format a disk with Windows 7, you will 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 write the image downloaded from the network (or yourself) to an optical disk.
You need to insert it into the drive, restart the computer, and in the BIOS set the boot from the CD / DVD drive. How to do this, you will have to find out on your own, as 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 the disk through the BIOS, you will have to find this information.
So, immediately after booting from the optical drive, you will be taken to the OS installation menu. Since we are talking about Windows 7, even the most “green” beginners can relax: everything is so clear there (almost at the level of intuition) that even a child can handle it.
Immediately after the first dialog box appears, select "Install" in it. Next, the required OS version is selected (if you enter the key, the installation program itself will select the necessary). After that, a dialog box for working with disks appears. Having finally understood how to format a system disk, find out its letter in advance, otherwise you can easily lose your entire collection of music or films.
This is what we need. Select the required section by clicking on it with the left mouse button. At the very bottom of the window should be a link "Disk Settings". Selecting it, you will see the appearance of other options. You need the “Format” section. Select the desired file system and click OK. Further, you can either continue to install Windows, or install some other operating system.
Since the system itself offers to format the disk during installation, in the absence of any experience it is better to leave those settings that are offered by default.
Live cd
If you have ever dealt with system administration, you probably know about Live CDs, which in the case of the Windows OS are often called BartPE. Such a carrier 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 (it's not Linux, after all), this option may be the only true one.
Since the system from the "live CD" is loaded into RAM, you can right-click on any disk (including the system one), 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 thing can be done using the installation disk with any Linux distribution. As a rule, they all have a Live CD mode, so you don’t have to perform any dances with the console. The same Ubuntu is ideal, the interface of which is as simple and intuitive as possible.
Another variant
But quite often it also happens that two systems are installed on one disk at once. In particular, this happens due to inexperience, when a person mistakenly puts several copies of an identical OS onto one physical disk.
This cannot be done, because such a combination may well cause problems when downloading and running programs. In addition, the human factor cannot be ruled out when users delete system files of the second from under the first system. Of course, it is not necessary to talk about stable operation in the latter case.
So how to format a Windows 7 drive then? Everything is much simpler here.
Cleaning through the context menu
To do this, go to "My Computer", and then select the disk on which the copy of Windows that you do not need is installed. Do not worry that the “distribution” will get 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 with the right mouse button, and then select "Format" in the menu that appears. A dialog box will also appear in which you should specify the type of file system. It all depends on your preferences and requirements.
File system selection
The main (and most reliable) is NTFS, but FAT32 is acceptable if necessary. We already wrote about determining the size of a standard cluster above. As for the type of formatting, here again everything is up to you.
But! You need to carefully figure out 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 fairly large recovery partition.
In the case when you are preparing a disk, the volume of which exceeds the limit of several hundred GB, this can be compromised. But marking disks with a capacity of 40 GB or lower is not worth it. However, where now you can meet such "dinosaurs"? But if you have a need to prepare the hard drive of some old computer, then our recommendations will certainly be useful to you.
If you select the "Quick (Clear the table of contents") check box, the process will not take much time, however, there will still be a chance that the deleted files from the disk can be restored.
If you intend to sell this hard drive, we recommend unchecking this box. After clicking on the “Start” button, all data, including the operating system installed there, will be erased from the media. This may take some time, which will directly depend on both the power of your computer and the size of the disk.
We perform cleaning through "Disk Management"
This method is somewhat more reliable. Having understood how to format the Windows 7 hard drive using this method, you first need to click on the "Start" button, and in the menu that appears, select "Control Panel". In the Panel that opens, look for the "Administration" option.
In the dialog box that opens, select the "Computer Management" shortcut. A window will open for managing the utility of the same name, in which we are interested in the item “Storage devices”. It is necessary to double-click on the line "Disk Management".
After all these manipulations, a window opens with a list of the storage devices installed in the system. Select the disk you need in it, right-click on it. The same context menu opens, in which you should select the "Format" item. You have already been familiarized with the next steps above.
Using the command line emulator
So we got to the most “advanced” method, which is used only by the most experienced users. So formatting a Windows 7 disc is very convenient and fast, but you need to remember or write down all the 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 (the "Paste" item).
Once again, pay attention: carefully follow the letter of the drive that you need to format. An error can lead to the fact that you lose data of considerable value (in any case, for you).
First you need to run the command line emulator with administrator privileges. This is done simply. First, click on the "Start" button, look for the "Search" field there. Drive the CMD command into it, and then press the Enter key. A window with search results will open on the right side, in which you need to right-click on the file of the same name and select the option “Run as Administrator” in the context menu.
Having decided how to format the disk partition with the system or unnecessary data, first of all write the command format Y: on the command line, where instead of Y there should be the letter of the partition you need. We repeat once again: make no mistake! There were times when scattered users lost all the archives with family video.
After that you need to press the Enter key, after which the data will be completely formatted. Important! When using the command line emulation mode, there are no warnings about the possible loss of important data in the event of an error, so be extremely careful when entering commands!
A bit about flash drives
If the external drive asks you to format it before use, you can also use the command line. All steps are exactly the same, but the main command will have a slightly different look: format Y: / Q. As in the previous case, the letter Y is the designation of your disk, which you need to change to the value that is relevant for your case, and the Q key means Quick, which indicates that fast formatting is carried out with a simple clearing of the table of contents.
What is it for? The fact is that once again, full formatting of flash drives should not be carried out, since this once again reduces the number of rewriting cycles.