Windows 7 / Getting Started

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Formatting a Partition, Logical Drive, or Volume

Before you can use a primary partition, logical drive, or volume, you must format it. Formatting creates the file structures necessary to work with files and folders. If you want to clean out a partition, logical drive, or volume and remove all existing data, you can use formatting to do this as well.

Although you can use formatting to change the type of file system, you don't have to do this to change from FAT or FAT32 to NTFS. Instead, to convert to NTFS you can use the Convert command, which preserves any existing data.

Caution:
A partition with unformatted space on a disk is listed with RAW as the file system type. A formatted partition is listed with its appropriate file system type, such as NTFS. If you reformat a formatted partition, you will destroy all data in the partition. A severely damaged file system might also show up as RAW. Don't reformat such a volume as you will lose any chance of recovering your data.

To format a primary partition, logical drive, or volume, follow these steps:

1. In Disk Management, right-click the primary partition, logical drive, or volume you want to format, and then choose Format. This displays the Format dialog box.
2. In the Volume Label box, type a descriptive label for the primary partition, logical drive, or volume. In most cases, you'll want to use a label that helps you and other administrators determine what type of data is stored in the partition or on the logical drive.
3. Select the file system type as FAT, FAT32, or NTFS. Keep in mind that only NTFS allows you to use the advanced file system features of Windows Server 2008, including advanced file access permissions, compression, encryption, disk quotas, shadow copies, remote storage, and sparse files.
4. Use the Allocation Unit Size field to specify the basic unit in which disk space should be allocated. In most cases the default size is what is best.
5. Select the Perform A Quick Format check box if you want to format the partition without checking for errors. Although this option can save you a few minutes, Disk Management won't mark bad sectors on the disk or lock them out, and this can lead to problems with data integrity later on.
6. If you want files and folders to be compressed automatically, select the Enable File And Folder Compression check box.
7. Click OK to begin formatting using the specified options. When prompted to confirm, click OK again.