Disk formatting or hard drive formatting is a process of initializing the hard drive to prepare it for storing data. It sets up a new and empty file system on your hard drive that helps the operating system to store, organize, and manipulate data on the disk. You can setup multiple file systems while formatting the disk. In Microsoft Windows operating system based computer, you can form the disk during Setup or by using Fdisk utility. Formatting can also be done for a hard drive that is currently in use for storing data. This process is usually called reformatting, which removes all the disk partitions and stored data, leading to critical partition loss situations. This problem requires partition recovery software to be fixed, if there is no valid backup in place.
The disk formatting is broadly categorized in the following two categories:
Low-level Formatting- This type of formatting is generally done on older hard drives. It is pretty slow and time-consuming process. The process checks all the sectors of hard drive and verify them.
High-level Formatting- It is the process to set up a new file system on your hard drive and install boot sector. The process is pretty fast. You can optionally scan the hard drive for defects in this process.
Hard Drive Reformatting:
This is a high-level disk formatting process, sometimes applied on working hard drives for erasing the contents of the drive. It is usually done in case of file system corruption, operating system malfunction, disk metadata structure corruption, and to get rid of a deadly virus. The process generally carries an implication that operating system and all applications needs to be reinstalled after reformatting the drive.
Although, reformatting may not absolutely erase all the data from your hard drive, it removes critical system data structures, like partition table, file system, and boot sector. It gives an appearance of empty hard drive to operating system, rendering existing data inaccessible by general methods. To recover lost data in such situations, you need to recover partition using third-party applications.
The partition recovery software are highly-advanced and efficient commercial tools that perform in-depth scan of whole hard drive using efficient scanning methods. The
Windows data recovery software recover lost partitions safely with read-only and non-destructive conduct.
Stellar Phoenix Windows Data Recovery is a powerful, yet easy to use utility to successfully handle all partition loss situations. The software recovers exFAT, NTFS5, NTFS, FAT32, VFAT, FAT16, and FAT12 file system partitions. It is usable with MS Windows 7, Vista, 2003, XP, and 2000 operating systems.
