How long should it take 2 format a partician??

michellen34

Please? It's been on for a round 5-6 hours and it's only 25% done?
Thanks x

S0litaire

How big is the drive?

Think something is wrong!

It should only take a few mins to do a "Quick Format" A "Full format" may take up to 30 mins.

Restart it and select "Quick Format" if possible.

michellen34

What it says on the screen is 19462mb , i thought it shouldn't take that long as i've done mine quite a few times, It's my son's pc and he had a virus and since then it's been really slow (20 mins to boot!!) Should i just turn it off and start again?

S0litaire

It should be ok to restart it!

If you're at the point of formatting it then there's nothing on the drive that would be hurt by turning it off

19462Mb roughly = 19Gb (might be worth getting a new drive)

I formatted a 120Gb drive (Full format) and it only took 10 mins!

michellen34

I've just restarted it and did the quick format, Think i will have to get him a new drive, this is going to sound daft but, can i get any size drive and it will work ok? or is the size i can get limited by the hardware etc he has on? lol

Thanks for your help.

Michelle.

isofa

michellen34 wrote: »

I've just restarted it and did the quick format, Think i will have to get him a new drive, this is going to sound daft but, can i get any size drive and it will work ok? or is the size i can get limited by the hardware etc he has on? lol

Thanks for your help.

Michelle.

You need to get the correct interface, if it's a fairly new PC, it'll be SATA, else it'll be PATA (otherwise known as IDE). PATA have a wide ribbon cable connecting them, SATA a quite narrow one (approx 7 connectors) to the motherboard. Plenty listed with decent prices at www.scan.co.uk - a good supplier. If it's a desktop you'll be looking at 3.5" drives, or 2.5" for a laptop. That's about it!

S0litaire

The PC sounds old; so look for an "IDE" or "PATA" connection. (They are the same thing!)

Any size of drive will be ok, the smallest you'll find is probably 80Gb with most selling 250Gb drives.

Check: https://www.Dabs.com, https://www.svp.co.uk

(Personal note! I can't stand Scan; Their support has been terrible in the past)

michellen34

Thanks for the help, I think its about 3 or 4 years old , i bought it of ebay and the person had said it was only around a year old when he made it, i did notice there was also an 8gb partition but i didn't know how to delete that one, so there would only be one drive. So i just left it. Once its up and running I'll check out what you said. Thanks again for all your help.

isofa

As loaner says, you could completely wipe it with DBAN and start from scratch to see if you get anywhere.

(Personal note too! Dabs are atrocious, terrible support, just search the forums here for the threads! TBH just pick a recommended supplier with the cheapest price, all HDs are much of a muchness!)

spud17

As someone who mostly uses old stuff, I'd guess that the HD has lots of dodgy sectors, which make it difficult to format.

I've had 2 HDs from ebay recently, 1 factory refurb and 1 brand new, I had to return both with faults.
Luckily got full refunds in both cases.
I now have 80gb ide from ebuyer, all seems O.K.

esbo

It is possible the drive is running in PIO mode which would slow up things considerably, worth checking.