what is a good program to format a HD

[Miguel2013]

I want to format a laptop sata HD but windows format utility takes hours and doesn't give any information while is doing it, I want a format utility that provides info real time while is formatting so I know what sector is doing or it just hang up, please respond.

 

[erocker]

Using Windows, just tick "quick format". If you are doing this to a drive that you want to install an O/S on, when you install Windows it gives you the option to format the drive.

 

[EarthDog]

Using Windows, just tick "quick format". If you are doing this to a drive that you want to install an O/S on, when you install Windows it gives you the option to format the drive.

This. Quick format and it wont take hours. No need for a long format 99% of the time anyway.

 

[Miguel2013]

This. Quick format and it wont take hours. No need for a long format 99% of the time anyway.

the HD may have bad sectors, it doesn't copy any files to it after certain amount of space used, is a laptop HD I wanted to know why the surface was too thin so I pressed on it and the HD disc spinned against the cover so I'm afraid is now broken, I want to do a long format to fix it.

 

[erocker]

so I pressed on it and the HD disc spinned against the cover so I'm afraid is now broken, I want to do a long format to fix it.

I'm afraid the hard drive is now no longer good. Formatting it won't fix the scratches on the disc.

 

[jgunning]

I'm afraid the hard drive is now no longer good. Formatting it won't fix the scratches on the disc.

agreed.Unfortunately you scratch the magnet then you could be in trouble.
If its for like extreme wipes you could use a dod wipe..?

 

[Miguel2013]

I'm afraid the hard drive is now no longer good. Formatting it won't fix the scratches on the disc.

I have to save this HD I just sold it on ebay, I want to do a long format so I mark the bad sectors as unusable so it doesn't fail when copying. what's a good program.

 

[erocker]

I have to save this HD I just sold it on ebay, I want to do a long format so I mark the bad sectors as unusable so it doesn't fail when copying. what's a good program.

Don't sell a broken hard drive. Tell the person who bought it that you cannot sell it.

 

[Athlon2K15]

Not going to work,contact the buyer on ebay and tell him it no longer works. Dont sell broken shit to people on ebay its not even right.

Edit: dammit erocker

 

[qubit]

I agree with the others. Tell the buyer it's busted, then either offer it to him for a couple of dollars or say you can't sell it.

You can't fix a busted drive with formatting and I have a feeling that you knew that...

 

[Miguel2013]

Tell you friends is real, after doing a full 3 hours format, I tested it again by filling the entire hd to bogus data and apparently is fine now, so what my uncle use to tell me was true except he use to do that with floppy disks. So a HD can be resurrected by doing a full format.

 

[Jetster]

No it cant, and the program you want is Hiren's boot disk. It contains many hard drive programs from quick formats to complete surface scans. A format wont take 3 hrs but a surface scan will. This is why I don't buy used hard drive on E bay

 

[RCoon]

the HD may have bad sectors, it doesn't copy any files to it after certain amount of space used, is a laptop HD I wanted to know why the surface was too thin so I pressed on it and the HD disc spinned against the cover so I'm afraid is now broken, I want to do a long format to fix it.

There is a tool called HDAT on Hiren's Boot CD(full of useful tools) run that and select check and repair bad sectors. It will repair what it can, and will bring to your attention if your HDD is dead. Also has a lovely ASCII 1-100% bar

 

[qubit]

Tell you friends is real, after doing a full 3 hours format, I tested it again by filling the entire hd to bogus data and apparently is fine now, so what my uncle use to tell me was true except he use to do that with floppy disks. So a HD can be resurrected by doing a full format.

No, you can't resurrect it with a full format, however good it seems now. It will start malfunctioning again quickly. Sell it as faulty and be honest about it with the seller. But once you have the buyer's money...

 

[Aquinus]

Try running a long SMART test on it. I know you can do this using smartmontools in Linux. It doesn't give you a progress bar or anything so you have to literally leave it alone for 4 hours or so. SMART will tell you if there really is a problem. It's pretty easy if you have a debian-based distro handy, a LiveCD is fine but you have to stay booted from it for a few hours.

#Ubuntu/Debian
sudo aptitude update
sudo aptitude install smartmontools
sudo smartctl -a /dev/sdX #About your drive
sudo smartctl -t long /dev/sdX #Run a long SMART test.

 

[FordGT90Concept]

If there is any chance of bad clusters on the drive, or known to previously had bad clusters on the drive, I strongly recommend against doing a "quick format." A full format will make sure those bad clusters are marked off so they won't be used.

 

[Techtu]

This made me