What Exactly Is Formatting a Hard Drive?

Toggle sidebar Toggle sidebar
turkey3_scratch

turkey3_scratch

Expert
Ambassador
Jul 15, 2014
22,630
8
60,960
For example, why could one not just copy the entire C drive to another hard drive and have two hard drives of Windows? What exactly is formatting and why does it need done? Are USB Drives formatted and how does that differ from hard drives?
 
Solution
manofchalk
OK, analogy time here.
Your HDD is a bookshelf, and it is full of unmarked books. When you write data, your writing inside these unmarked books. Formatting the HDD is the equivalent of writing a guide to where all the information is, because just looking at the bookcase you cant tell where anything is. This is why if you reformat a drive you "lose" all your data on it, because you just destroyed your guide to where all the information is. Data recovery software can still read whats written there (the data is still written in the "books" and can be recovered).

This needs to happen because quite simply your OS needs to know where data is on the drive, and to search the whole drive linearly for it would be slow as all hell (especially...
Sort by date Sort by votes
J

jdcranke07

Honorable
Feb 10, 2014
1,346
2
11,965
Hard drives do not come pre-setup for installation of software. There are some exceptions thought like in external HDDs. Formatting a drive into an NTFS format will allow a Windows PC to read the HDD. Fat32 is not recommended as you kill the storage space of the HDD. And unless you have a Raid Controller with your HDDs plugged into it instead of the motherboard or have your HDDs setup for hotswap, you will not be able to just pull out the HDD and have another Windows motherboard read the HDD
 
Upvote 0 Downvote
manofchalk

manofchalk

Glorious
May 11, 2012
12,914
3
48,960
OK, analogy time here.
Your HDD is a bookshelf, and it is full of unmarked books. When you write data, your writing inside these unmarked books. Formatting the HDD is the equivalent of writing a guide to where all the information is, because just looking at the bookcase you cant tell where anything is. This is why if you reformat a drive you "lose" all your data on it, because you just destroyed your guide to where all the information is. Data recovery software can still read whats written there (the data is still written in the "books" and can be recovered).

This needs to happen because quite simply your OS needs to know where data is on the drive, and to search the whole drive linearly for it would be slow as all hell (especially considering the data could be fragmented across the drive).



You can absolutely do this, no reason you cant.
You will never have two C: drives on the one system, since "C: Drive" is reserved only for the partition the OS is running off, however there is no reason you cant have an identical copy of C: in the same system (it would just come under a different drive letter).



All storage devices have to be formatted. USB drives and other small-capacity flash memory are typically formatted by a different standard (typically FAT32) thats more suited to their technologies than NTFS (typical HDD format in Windows).
 
Upvote 0 Downvote
Solution
turkey3_scratch

turkey3_scratch

Expert
Ambassador
Jul 15, 2014
22,630
8
60,960

Thanks! Helped so much. But can't people easily make illegal Windows copies by copying the entire C Drive to a new computer?
 
Upvote 0 Downvote
manofchalk

manofchalk

Glorious
May 11, 2012
12,914
3
48,960
Transplanting Windows installations across systems tends to not work because the Windows installation is configured for the initial system. If you swap the CPU and mobo out from a system, more than likely Windows will just fail to boot.
If it does work (transplanting between similar systems or sheer luck), Windows invalidates itself. Each motherboard has its own serial number and Windows internalizes that and ties its key to it (more on that later), so it knows what system your licence is valid on.

Which is why with OEM copies of Windows you can only install it to one machine, while retail you can have up to three (irc). When you buy a Windows disc, you arent buying the software, your buying that activation code, your license to use it. You can install Windows without inputting an activation code (or inputting one that is already tied to another system or otherwise used) but it would be invalid, so it wont receive any support like updates.
 
Upvote 0 Downvote
P

Paperdoc

Polypheme
Ambassador
Oct 19, 2006
11,278
1,032
69,340
When Windows is Installed on a HDD in a computer, it is always customized in several ways. For example, every computer has perhaps 30 to 50 "devices" that Windows needs to work with, and each requires a bit of custom software called a "driver". The Install process ensures that all the drivers required in THIS machine are installed, but not thousands of others it does not need.

More important to your question about illegal Windows: Certain components of every computer contain their own unique Serial Number that software can read. When Windows is Installed it reads those and writes them to its own hidden file on the HDD. Every time it starts up, Windows checks those components and compares to its file record. If something important has changed, it treats that as evidence that this copy of Windows does NOT belong on this machine, and won't work.
 
Upvote 0 Downvote
ssddx

ssddx

Titan
May 27, 2009
17,054
5
74,965
@turkey

no, because your windows is tied to a product key that you need to activate. typically it links itself to your system (basically the motherboard) so it would be seen as illegal on another pc.

copying the C:/ drive to another drive is what is basically done for "disk images" for backing up your data. this is done all the time and is great because you can just copy the data back to your main drive if it gets corrupted or a new drive if it fails. also in raid1 this is done since two drives are used with the same information. if one fails you still have one left which means your chances of failure and data loss are very low.
 
Upvote 0 Downvote
You must log in or register to reply here.

TRENDING THREADS

Latest posts

Moderators online

Share this page

COMPANY
RESOURCES
FOLLOW
Top Bottom