Create a bootable USB flash drive to format your hard drive. Changing the partition size. Using the diskpart tool

On electronic media, be it flash drives, floppy disks or hard disks, data is stored in cells, like on a chessboard. They are created programmatically, that is, they cannot be physically viewed on the disk. The process of marking media for such cells is called formatting. As a result of this operation, old data is erased.

Formatting may required, if the media is new. The hard drive you just purchased is not partitioned, so it is not suitable for storing data. Also formatting will help when the file system damaged.

Typically formatted HDD before installation new operating system on him. This is done so that the OS functions correctly or to get rid of system garbage. You can also clean the media this way from malicious programs that the antivirus missed.

Why use bios for formatting?

In general, the expression “format via BIOS” is incorrect, because the BIOS itself does not have the necessary options. Formatting is carried out using third party applications, and bios is needed to change download priorities. You cannot perform such operations on a scratch disk. To clear it, you need to boot from another media.

How to install boot from disk or flash drive

Important! Depending on model motherboard and, the procedure may vary.

After these steps, the system will always boot from the selected media, but if you need to change the priority only once, you can do the following:

How to format a hard drive using a distribution kit

To format a hard drive in this way, you will need a flash drive or cd\dvd on which it is recorded Windows installer 7 or any other.

Format the hdd using third-party programs

There are other formatting options.

A non-system HDD can be formatted using standard Windows operations. To do this you need:

This method will allow you to change the file system.

You can also use the program Acronis Disc Director. In this way you can even clean system disk. To execute HDD formatting using this application, you should:

Important! If cleared system partition, Windows will not boot.

IN last years computer literacy the population has increased slightly. In any case, many people know about the programs, and some can already figure out their home router themselves, since from technical support Most domestic providers cannot achieve anything meaningful.

But still, the overwhelming majority of users do not know anything about the computer, which would be more difficult than sitting in social networks. In particular, if any serious software failures occur that can only be corrected complete reinstallation OS, they have no idea how to format a Windows 7 drive.

Of course, such a need does not arise very often, but if a beginner encounters it, then there can be a lot of problems. That is why you will probably find it useful to read this article, in order to form your own idea of the process.

The essence of formatting. Why is it needed?

Formatting is the process by which a surface is marked hard drive. The most basic thing is low-level formatting, which is performed only at the manufacturer. We are interested in the high-level process that modifies logical partitions on disks.

Before formatting a Windows 7 drive, the user must determine the type file system, cluster size and others specifications again the section being created. This should not be taken lightly, since the survivability of the media 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 and store only text documents on such a disk, then you will waste free place. Let's assume that you have defined the volume as 512 KB. That is, by writing only one file to disk text document at 20B, you occupy an entire cluster, 99% of which will be wasted.

How to format the system partition?

If you know a little about computers, then you perfectly remember the procedure for standard preparation of a new section. You can click on its icon right key mouse and select “Format” 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 will appear stating that this operation is impossible. How to be?

Using a boot disk

If you really want to find out 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 make it yourself. To do this, you need to write an image downloaded from the network (or created by yourself) to

You need to insert it into the drive, restart the computer, and set the BIOS to boot from the CD/DVD drive. You will have to find out how to do this yourself, since different manufacturers provide different versions“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 a disk through the BIOS, you will have to find this information.

So, immediately after loading from 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 (almost at the level of intuition) that even a child can handle it.

Immediately after the first dialog box appears, select “Install”. Next, select the required OS version (if you enter the key, the installation program will select the required one). After this, work with disks appears. Having finally understood how to format the system disk, find out its letter in advance, otherwise you can easily lose your entire collection of music or movies.

That's what we need. Select the required section by left-clicking on it. At the very bottom of the window there should be a “Disk Settings” link. Once you select it, you will see other options appear. You need the Format section. Select the required file system and click OK. Then you can either continue installing Windows, or install some other operating system.

Since the system itself offers to format the disk during installation, if you do not have any experience, it is better to leave the 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 Windows OS are often called BartPE. From such media you can not only boot from the BIOS, but also get a fully functional system as a result. Since formatting the system disk under a working OS will not work (this is not Linux, after all), this option may be the only correct one.

Since the system is loaded from a “live CD” into RAM, you can right-click on any drive (including the system drive), and then select “Format” from the context menu. All subsequent actions are no different from those that we have already described in this article.

The same can be done using an installation disk with any Linux distribution. As a rule, they all have Live CD mode, so you don't have to do any dances with the console. Ubuntu is ideal, the interface of which is as simple and intuitive as possible.

Another variant

But it often happens that two systems are installed on one disk at once. In particular, this happens due to inexperience, when a person mistakenly bets on one physical disk several copies of an identical OS at once.

This cannot be done, because such a combination may well cause problems when loading and operating programs. Moreover, it cannot be ruled out human factor, when from under the first system users delete system files second. Of course, talk about stable work in the latter case it is not necessary.

So how to format a drive with Windows 7 then? Everything is much simpler here.

Cleaning via context menu

To do this, you need to go to “My Computer”, and then select the drive on which the copy of Windows you don’t need is installed. There is no need to worry that the Windows you are currently working on will be targeted. We have already indicated that in this case the system itself will not allow you to do this.

Next, you should right-click on the section you need, and then select “Format” from the menu that appears. A dialog box will also appear asking you to specify the file system type. It all depends on your preferences and requirements.

File system selection

The main (and most reliable) is NTFS, but if necessary, FAT32 can be used. We have already written about determining the size of a standard cluster above. As for the type of formatting, here again everything depends only on you.

But! You need to carefully understand how to format a hard NTFS disk. It should be taken into account that the reliability of this file system is based on the fact that it creates a sufficiently large recovery partition.

In the case when you are preparing a disk whose volume exceeds several hundred GB, this can be sacrificed. But you shouldn’t mark disks with a capacity of 40 GB and below this way. However, where can you find such “dinosaurs” now? But if you need to prepare the hard drive of an old computer, then our recommendations will certainly be useful to you.

If you check the “Quick (Table of Contents Cleanup”) checkbox, the process will not take much time, but there will still be a chance that deleted files from the disk can be recovered.

If you intend to sell this hard drive, we recommend that you uncheck this box. After clicking on the “Start” button, all data will be erased from the media, including the operating system installed there. This may take some time, which will directly depend on both the power of your computer and the size of the disk.

Perform cleaning through Disk Management

This method is somewhat more reliable. Having understood Windows 7 using this method, you must first 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 control window for the utility of the same name will open, in which we are interested in the “Storage devices” item. In it you need to double-click on the “Disk Management” line.

After all these manipulations, a window will open with a list of storage devices installed in the system. Select the disk you need from it and right-click on it. The same context menu will open, in which you should select the “Format” item. WITH further actions you have already read above.

Using the Command Line Emulator

So we got to the most “advanced” method, which is used only by the most experienced users. This way, formatting a disk with Windows 7 is very convenient and quick, but you need to remember or write down all the commands that we will give you in the text below.

It’s best to simply copy them into and then paste them into the command line using the right mouse button (“Paste”).

Once again, pay attention: carefully monitor the drive letter that you need to format. A mistake can cause you to lose data that is of considerable value (to you, anyway).

First you need to run the emulator with administrator rights. This is done simply. First, click on the “Start” button and look for the “Search” field there. You drive it into CMD command, and then click on Enter key. WITH right side A window will open with search results, in which you need to right-click on the file of the same name and select the “Run as Administrator” option in the context menu.

Having decided how to format a disk partition with the system or unnecessary data, first of all write on the command line format command Y:, where instead of Y there should be the letter of the section you need. We repeat once again: make no mistake! There have been cases when absent-minded users lost all archives with family videos.

After this, you need to press the Enter key, after which the data will be completely formatted. Important! When using emulation mode command line 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 little about flash drives

If external drive asks you to format it before using it, you can also use the command line. All steps are exactly the same, but core team will have a slightly different appearance: format Y: /Q. As in the previous case, the letter Y is the designation of your disk, which you need to change to a value relevant to your case, and the key Q stands for Quick, which indicates a quick format with a simple clearing of the table of contents.

What is it for? The fact is that you should not completely format flash drives again, as this once again reduces the number of rewrite cycles.

Windows 10 offers several ways to format a partition or hard drive. You can do this operation either from Explorer, Disk Management or Command Prompt via BIOS. In this article I decided to put all 3 methods together.

Important: Formatting a drive or partition will delete all data stored on that drive or partition. Therefore, before formatting a disk or partition, be sure to save the data you need on another disk or external USB drive.

Format your hard drive from Windows Explorer

Step 1. Open " This computer", select the one you need local disk, which you want to format and click on it right click mouse, then from the menu select " Format".

Step 2. Select the file system for the drive from the drop-down list " File system", make sure that the method is selected " Fast" and then click " Begin".

Formatting a disk or partition using Disk Management

Step 1. Open the built-in Disk Management tool by right-clicking on the Start button and selecting the option Disk Management". Or simply press the Win + X button combination and select from the menu.

Step 2. Right-click on the drive or partition you want to format and click " Format".

Step 3. A new dialog box will open in which select the file system (I recommend NTFS) and check the box " Quick formatting".

Formatting a disk and partition via BIOS using CMD

If you cannot format through Explorer, Disk Management, or simply want to format the hard drive when booting the system through BIOS using the command line, then we will analyze this method. When booting the system you need to go to " Extra options"boot. There are two ways: through the desktop and when booting the PC.

Through the desktop.

Open " Options" > "Update and Security" > "Recovery" > and select on the right in the column " Special options downloads" reboot now. Next you will be taken to "Advanced" Windows settings 10" where you need to run cmd ( see step 1).

When PC boots.

Press the restart button on the computer itself many times in a row to trigger an error and bring up the process diagnostic menu.
Turn on the computer, wait until it boots as much as possible before the error occurs. Next, press and hold the power button on your computer to complete shutdown. Repeat the procedure 3 times, by the 4th time you should see a recovery menu.

Step 1. Once you are in the advanced boot options, go to settings" Troubleshooting" > "Extra options" > "Command line".

1) Formatting the partition. Now let's format a certain chapter disk, and below I will show you how to format a complete disk if there are many of them on your computer. Enter the commands in order into the black command line window and press Enter after each one.

Diskpart- Launch the disk tool.
List Volume- List of partitions on your hard drive. You should know which one you need to format and remember its letter, in my case G.
Select Volume G- Select the partition that needs to be formatted.
Format fs=ntfs Quick- The command formats the selected partition and converts the file NTFS system, if you need FAT32, then just replace it.

2) Format the disk. If you have more than two hard drives on your computer and you need to format entire hard drive, then enter the commands in order, pressing Enter after each one.

diskpart- launch a tool for working with disks.
list disk - a list of hard drives connected to the computer.
Find the drive you want to format and remember the number. In my case, the disk number is " 1 ".
select disk 1- disk selection. Remember to replace "1" with your actual disk number.
clean- cleaning the selected disk.
create partition primary- make the disk the main one.
format fs=ntfs quick- formatting the disk with the NTFS file system.
That's it, enter exit to exit the diskpart utility from the command line.

Many users believe that formatting is nothing more than preliminary removal from the hard drive of all data to record new ones. This is true, but in fact, deleting data from the hard drive is a side effect of formatting. This procedure comes in two types: low-level and logical.

Low-level formatting of a hard drive is done at the production stage. In this case, the markings necessary for correct positioning heads
Logical, executed after it is divided into partitions, which are named: drive D:\ E:\, etc. Logical formatting creates a boot sector file structure and partition table with boot record. The entire disk space of the formatted “screw” is divided into clusters.

In addition, formatting can be normal or accelerated. In the normal case, the file structure is deleted and a check is performed broken clusters, which are rejected and are not used in the future for recording information.

During quick formatting, only the file table is deleted. All new data is written over old data.

Working with a hard drive using standard Windows OS tools

Many people ask how to format a hard drive using their own operating system. There is nothing simpler:

If you decide to format the hard drive partition where your operating system is located, then using Windows it is impossible to do this. This operation must be done via DOS and using any LiveCD.

If you are wondering how to format a hard drive via BIOS, you should read the instructions to the end and follow all the steps described below.

By formatting a “screw” via BIOS we mean using boot disk, which is launched by setting up the device in the BIOS.

Restart your PC.
Before starting the OS, enter the BIOS, select the BOOT tab, where select as boot required device(depends on what media the boot disk is on).
Save the changes and restart your PC.
After booting the disk, press the key combination Shift+F10.
After opening the command line, type format /FS:NTFS X: /q - where X is the required partition. For file Fat systems 32 type format /FS:FAT32 X: /q - where X is the required partition.
Then press Enter and type Y as confirmation.

Now all that's left to do is wait.

Working with a hard drive when installing Windows OS

Working with the hard drive with third-party programs

There are a lot software solutions for working with disks. Most popular program For hard formatting disk is Acronis Disk Director Suite. It is very easy to use, it is most often present in various assemblies LiveCD.

Questions and answers

Several hundred people daily ask our specialists the question: how to low-level format a hard drive from a flash drive.

In fact, there are times when removing a virus requires removing everything boot sector. And for this there are certain software tools, such as SeaTools for DOS. At standard launch of this program, a bootable one is created USB storage device, from which you download and select one of three types of hard drive cleaning.

Actually completely low level such a procedure cannot be called, but the possibility complete removal data with deleting the zero track and sectors of the hard disk, as well as filling everything disk space zeros, closest to the concept low level formatting.

How to completely format a hard drive so that the data on it cannot be recovered?

Indeed, even after reformatting, data can be recovered using special software. If you need to permanently delete all information from the hard drive, for example, when reselling a PC, then use the program for full formatting hard drive Eraser HDD.

After downloading, the program is immediately ready to work and does not require additional settings. By clicking the Start button, you will see a list of sections of your “screw” under the numbers. Select the number of the partition that requires full formatting, paste it into the window and click Apply. After which you will be asked for confirmation for the last time. permanent deletion all information. After confirmation, reboot and go through the hard drive initialization procedure.

It is usually recommended to format the hard drive before directly using any computer equipment. This procedure must be followed by every PC owner. Due to the special quality and volume inherent in the current hard drives, they can be freely used throughout the entire period of use, without resorting to additional reformatting.

Why formatting is required

In some cases and over time certain period time, it is necessary to format the hard drive (hard drive), as this allows you to easily update it. Due to the fact that the Windows operating system sometimes becomes clogged, that is, it contains irrelevant, old files on the disk that are not used by current programs, formatting will be very useful. It will help get rid of such files that occupy a certain amount of memory space and can have a negative effect on system productivity.

For their convenience, PC owners periodically install and remove the applications they need from their computer. As a consequence of this, a file dump arises and grows rapidly, causing serious problems: each application, having become part of the OS, affects the configuration of the entire environment. The solution to effectively solve this problem in the most optimal way is to format the HDD (hard drive) after certain periods of time and reinstall the operating system.

Despite the radical nature of this method, it is the most effective, because not only useless files are destroyed, but also malware, viruses. For this reason, it is recommended that before formatting the hard drive, rewrite the main data to some other media so as not to lose it.

It is worth noting that when formatting in sectors of hard service labels are created on the disk, which are necessary for searching for data and working with it correctly (reading, writing, deleting). In addition to this procedure, formatting creates service information intended for the file system. Due to the fact that unpartitioned disks are useless for use, formatting acts as a priority operation to prepare a new “untested” disk for successful operation.

Thus, to reduce the risk of losing important data in the uncertain future, formatting will help achieve:

guaranteed quick cleaning hard drive;
effective detection of the presence of badblocks (damaged disk sectors);
high-quality monitoring of all kinds of defective areas.

Quick or regular formatting: process analysis

The user has two types of formatting according to the capabilities of the Windows OS - quick (Quick Format) or normal (Format). The uninitiated user will see the difference in them only in the time spent on performing each of these processes. But besides the visible factor, there is a more significant difference.

Quick formatting is a special disk cleaning method that allows you to create a table of files without overwriting it or deleting information on the hard drive. In terms of time, quick formatting occurs faster than regular formatting. As such, a quick format simply resets the file table: important information data can be restored - it is not destroyed. This method is appropriate when the user is confident that there are no damaged segments and the hard drive has not been previously formatted.

Resorting to normal formatting, the PC owner always completely empties the disk of files and checks it for the possibility of incorrect, damaged segments. It is precisely the verification time that stretches, affecting the total duration of the entire process.

It was discussed above high level formatting, practice shows that the understanding of the term low-level formatting is no less popular. When performing such an operation, special markings are applied to the disk plane, which are necessary for standard operation of the drive. This also allows you not only to save data and have open access to them, but also to provide correct operation internal circuits drive, in addition to hiding existing mechanical surface defects.

Can data be restored after formatting is complete?

Low-level formatting does not provide for the possibility of restoring previous information.

High-level formatting, in turn, gives significant chances to partially restore erased data. This is explained by the fact that at the time of formatting new logical structures with selective data overwriting.

Formatting Options: Practical Tour

It will be better to format a hard drive yourself if you move from theory to practice. Let's look at several methods, moving from the simple and most understandable to the more complex.

Formatting options:

The simplest formatting method: open “My Computer”, right-click on the required type of formatting, select “Format” in the menu that appears and select the “Start” button.
A special path in Windows: Open “Start” and go to the “Control Panel” to the “Administrative Tools” file, select “Computer Management”, and then “Disk Management”. We find the required disk and, to format it, perform the operations presented in the simple procedure.
Important: There may be slight differences in the path depending on the version of Windows.
Command line: by pressing “WIN + R” and in the window that pops up, writing CMD followed by pressing ENTER, open the command line.
There we write: format d: or format c: to start the process relative to the drive D:\ or C:\. After entering, by pressing ENTER you will see on the display: “ATTENTION, ALL DATA ON THE FIXED DISK WITH: WILL BE DESTROYED! Should I start formatting?

When ready to delete data, select Y and press ENTER.
When available removable media With installation file operating system. Those who have installation disk and who is familiar with Windows installation, they probably know when it’s best to format disks. Perhaps this approach is used by few people only for formatting. However, it is very convenient if after the procedure the user plans to reinstall Windows.