Format HDD's without OS CD?

[RaceFace]

Hey,

is it possible to format the hard drives, without having the CD for Windows 7?

I know how to do many things, but haven't done this before

I want to format the HDD with the OS on, but I'm unsure of where the OS CD is, so is there any way I can "leave out" the OS, if you know what I mean?

If you know, please include a small step by step, or give me a link describing it.
Any other questions regarding HW or SW, ask me

Thanks in advance!

(Searched, but couldn't find any threads about it, sorry if there were)

 

[Janus67]

I'm not quite sure what you mean. Do you want the entire drive to be formatted? When you say 'leave out' the OS, do you mean leave out the requirement or just leave the OS behind?

If you want to just format the drive you can use software/disk like Hiren's boot CD or normally any of the software that can be downloaded from the HDD manufacturer site (they normally have diagnostic tools that allow for formatting/etc)

 

[RaceFace]

I want to fully format the HDD, although I haven't got the Windows CD in my hands at the moment, so I can't format the "normal" way.

Might mean to leave the OS behind, yes, is that possible?

Full format, WITHOUT touching the OS, or possibly re-installing the OS without CD but flash drive or rw-CDs.

 

[MattNo5ss]

You can format HDDs from the OS through Disk Management or just right click on the drives and go to format while in My Computer. You can't format the hard drive you are currently using for the OS, that's like using a program to erase itself. I've never heard of a partial drive format where you can pick an choose what part of a drive to format either.

 

[Janus67]

I don't believe it is possible because of how the files are stored, either you format the drive or you don't. Granted you could create a partition after uninstalling/removing excess files/applications and have some new fresh space, but you can't format and just leave the OS installed.

 

[c627627]

Format nukes the partition. If you want to leave certain files on the hard drive partition then that's called deleting, not formatting.

You can do both off of a USB stick or a boot CD.


One of many boot format apps: http://www.dban.org/

 

[n1co]

Do you have a spare computer ?

 

[I.M.O.G.]

Formatting is really only useful if you want to delete everything on the drive, and install a fresh OS, or if you want to use the drive for something else.

It sounds like you want to preserve the OS, so a format doesn't fit exactly, and I don't see how it would benefit you at all.

 

[RaceFace]

Fair enough, I get your drift.

I'm just thinking of files that are scattered around, taking a lot of space and so on...

On the other hand, what is the best format for the file system, NTFS, exFAT ir what?
Let's say it is the PC I'm using currently, running Win 7 64 bit, on a Barracuda 7200, 32mb...
How about other HDD's? Green ones for storing larger files mainly - what's the best format?

 

[n1co]

NTFS is your best bet, if your looking to store large files. As FAT32 is limited to 4GB

 

[Janus67]

NTFS is the standard for right now, at least for Windows 7. Windows 8 will have a new one (Resilient File System [ReFS]) but I'm not sure if that will be available on desktops or only server.

 

[I.M.O.G.]

Changing filesystem format will not conserve space or help with scattered files. There are non-windows filesystem formats that are less prone to fragmentation due to the way they reserve space and write data to disk, however on a windows OS NTFS is really the only answer.

If you have very many very small files, it is better to use a smaller cluster size or allocation unit size, to limit file size overhead. However most people have larger files that take up the majority of disk space, and using a smaller allocation unit size than default will offer no benefit, unless you have a very specific usage scenario.