Which software to use to format FAT32?

[badboo]

I have problems with my DVP 5990/37 and the Maxtor 320GB external hard drive.

I used a command line FAT32 formatting tool which "formatted" my drive in 2 seconds...

I don't think it's supposed to work like that.

I had some bad sectors on the drive and wanted to do a full format.

I'm using Windows 7 and I have the hardest time to find a good software to format my external hard drive with FAT32.

Any recommendations?

Thanks in advance.

[aedipuss]

you can run format in a dos box and still do fat. -- format /FS:FAT32 X: where x is your external drive letter.

or i think the swissknife program is still free and will do it also.

[badboo]

you can run format in a dos box and still do fat. -- format /FS:FAT32 X: where x is your external drive letter.

or i think the swissknife program is still free and will do it also.

Thanks for your response.

I tried swissknife before but I couldn't get it to run on Windows 7

I used Seagate's DiscWizard to format it FAT32 - I thought it might be best to use the manufacturer's software. I found it just after I posted my thread.

Still the formatting took 10 seconds.

I hope the drive functions properly now...

[jagabo]

I used Seagate's DiscWizard to format it FAT32 - I thought it might be best to use the manufacturer's software. I found it just after I posted my thread.

Still the formatting took 10 seconds.

I hope the drive functions properly now...

A fast format (what you did) simply writes an empty root directory and marks all the drive space as free. A full format reads every sector of the drive and marks bad sectors so they don't get used to store data -- it takes much longer, hours for large drives.

[badboo]

A fast format (what you did) simply writes an empty root directory and marks all the drive space as free. A full format reads every sector of the drive and marks bad sectors so they don't get used to store data -- it takes much longer, hours for large drives.

I know that this was a quick format procedure. I would have done a regular format if I had the option in order to get the bad blocks marked.

If I do the DOS command format will it be a regular format? It should right?

[jagabo]

I don't know if the CLI format command will work in Win7. You will have to specify /X to unmount the drive first. Type FORMAT /? for a list of options.

Since you've already formatted the drive you can just run a full surface scan from Windows. That will mark bad blocks too. From the Drive Properties dialog go to the Tools tab, press Check Now in the Error-checking section. At the next dialog enable "Automatically fix file system errors" and "Scan for and attempt recovery of bad sectors". That second option will scan the entire disk, relocate whatever file data it can from bad sectors to good sectors, and mark all bad sectors so they won't be used again.

Brand new drives usually do not have bad sectors these days because the drives are actually a bit larger than the advertised size. Bad blocks are hidden by the drive and reserved blocks are substituted.

[Bwizzy]

Have you tried to click on Start > Right Click on Computer > Manage > Click Disk Manager. Find the drive that you wanna format then Right click on said drive> Format. Change the file system to what you want and Uncheck Perform a quick format. Hope this helps. Your screen should look like so:

Hope this helps