Solved What's the difference between normal format and zero-filling erase

[rafa79]

I'm currently zero-filling erasing my HDD because Windows 7 wouldn't let me format it. What's the difference between the two methods, please...

 

[RolandJS]

Quick format simply deletes the pointers to the folders and files on the hard-drive. Earlier days, I knew about FAT and DIR structure -- FAT being the post office's house numbers, the DIR being the names of the houses. Back then, quick format simply removed all of the house numbers and deleted the first character of all of the house names. I don't know how to "analogize" or explain NTFS workings.
Zero-filling, full-formatting, means the pointers are completely obliterated and each sector of each cluster is over-written with the Zero character, at least once if not several times.
And, often, there is concern that somebody can unformat/undelete full-formatted hard-drives and resurrect folders and files. Lettuce tell you -- those of us who have tried this on our own accidentally formatted hard-drives -- "recovery of items from a burned down house is often very difficult, very time consuming, very detailed, and quite often the results are nothing at all like we had hoped such would be, when the items were new; kinda sorta like reconstructing Georgia after General Sherman's March."

 

[strollin]

I'm currently zero-filling erasing my HDD because Windows 7 wouldn't let me format it. What's the difference between the two methods, please...

Zero filling probably won't help your situation. Try deleting the existing partition(s) and let Win 7 create new ones.

 

[RolandJS]

I'm currently zero-filling erasing my HDD because Windows 7 wouldn't let me format it. What's the difference between the two methods, please...

Zero filling probably won't help your situation. Try deleting the existing partition(s) and let Win 7 create new ones.

strollin, I missed that part: ...format it. I hope rafa will succeed following your steps.

 

[rafa79]

I ended up zero-filling the HDD, after that it took me a while to get it working again, in disk management it was 'RAW' and I couldn't use it, I then finally was able to format it normally and now it's working fine, thanks anyway.