Formatting a disk in the Windows operating system has two options. One of them includes a procedure for completely erasing data and searching for bad sectors on the media. The other is limited to only erasing information about the location of files on the formatted disk. The second method takes incomparably less time and is therefore called "fast" formatting.
Instructions
Step 1
Open Windows Explorer. There are many ways to do this - for example, you can double-click the My Computer shortcut on your desktop. You can use the program launch dialog - press the WIN + R key combination, enter the explorer command and press the Enter key. And the easiest way, perhaps, is to press the WIN + E keyboard shortcut.
Step 2
Select the drive you want to format in Explorer and right-click it. Select the "Format" item in the drop-down context menu. As a result of this action, the formatting operation settings window will open. The "Format" item may not appear in the context menu of the disk, since not all media can be subjected to this operation using standard Windows OS tools.
Step 3
Check the "Quick (Clear Table of Contents)" box under "Formatting Methods". As a result of erasing the table of contents of the selected disk, the operating system will later consider this disk empty, and new data will be written over existing files.
Step 4
Check the box next to "Use compression" if you want to slightly increase the capacity of the disk after formatting it. Then the operating system will compress the data on every write and decompress it on every read. However, this algorithm for working with files will require the use of a much larger amount of computer resources. Before activating it, you need to weigh the power reserve of the processor and RAM, as well as the resource intensity of the tasks that you usually solve with this computer.
Step 5
Enter your own name in the Volume Label field, which will be assigned to the drive after formatting, in addition to the letter assigned to it. In the "Cluster size" drop-down list, you can select the sector size.
Step 6
Click the "Start" button to start the formatting procedure.
