Help with NTFS versus FAT32

[#1]

@WinfredVaughan Not sure, exactly,  but someone told me a long time ago.. (years n years !) ..that a full format overwrites all the stuff on the disc, with 0 and 1 or various combinations. whereas a Quick Format only overwrites the file names... which would make a Quick Format .... er ... Quicker  ! ! !    .. of course, he, and I, could be wrong...

[#2]

@shutter Sort of. A quick format simply dumps the FAT or Journal while a quick format deletes the file first and scans the disk for errors.

To overwrite with data such as 0 or 1s you need a different program to do that.

[#3]

I have an alternative philosophy for back ups. I run separarate system and data disks. To my mind it's ony the data disk  that needs a regular back up. Ok if tthe system disk goes belly up you might need a reference in order to get back quickly but after that on line updates should rebuild it. Over the years I have collected HDDs after updating computers. I simply put one of these in a caddy and clone the system disk for a back up.

I find that all the updates over a couple of years plus software that I nolonger use clogs up the system disk so every few years I note which programs I wish to keep then reformat the disk and do a new clean install.

[#4]

"Before I go any further, what is happening ? Is "Quick Format" reliable?"

Hi @WinfredVaughan

I always use QF and it has never failed

Dave

[#5]

Thanks again for all your comments.  So what I have decided to do is :

1. Reformat the external 1 TB hard disk with exFAT.  I started that two hours ago and it has done about 1/8.  There is no point at this stage to start again using Quick Format but I know for the future.

2. Do a CHKDSK on the C: drive and its partition D:.  I cannot do that at present because I am re-formatting the external drive and CHKDSK will not let me because the external is being formatted !  I am worried still about the need to "Missing boot file: Press any key to continue" which I get whenever i re-start either from shut-down or from hibernate.  It is only recent, but I am anxious to get a a system back-up before the disk fails if it is going to !  It may be the BIOS has got changed somehow and the boot source has been corrupted; I need to check that.

3. Use the in-built old Windows 7 Back-up and Restore to creat an image on the hard disk, and then copy it immediately to the external hard disk.

4. Then, for belt and braces, made another image using Macrium.  I am not sure whether Macrium will support exFAT, but if not, then I will have to do the same process as 3 above.

Fingers crossed everything holds together until then !

[#6]

I've got a Blu Ray writer in my PC, which is handy. 25Gb per disc, and the writer cost me about £80 at the time. That must have been 3 or so years ago now. Easy to install, and no problems.

I personally am only worried about really personal stuff, such as documents and photos.

I've got around 12Gb of photos, backed them up recently.

My sysadmin friend recommended the software ImgBurn. Really good, free, so simple to use and does the job.

As people have said, make sure the things that are important to you are backed up. Hopefully something doesn't go wrong, it is of course just covering yourself it if does.

[#7]

Pretty sure a quick format just updates the FAT so the disk thinks there is nothing is on it, when actually there is.

So what you put on there will start to overwrite what is on there.

That disk sounds like it is on its last legs (from what you've said). So get anything important off it ASAP, and personally once you've done that I would chuck it in the bin.

[#8]

My backup regime is taken care of using TimeMachine set at 30 minute intervals and at 13:00 and 17:00 Acronis True Image takes machine snapshots to a remote NAS for the Belt and Braces.

[#9]

I wouldn't keep messing about with file systems.

On Windows:-

small/medium sized devices FAT32 is OK because its been around in some form for 40+ years

NTFS for large-ish devices because its been around in some form for 20+ years

Otherwise use a specialised file system if you are running a small data centre.

Not sure why exFAT was invented - perhaps a last gasp attempt to extend the use of FAT?

[#10]

Sorry to keep banging on about this, but it is not my day.

The external 2 TB hard disk was being reformatted as exFat because obviously the NTFS did not work.  However, that has just hung at the same place as it did with NTFS.  I did it as a full scan this morning as I explained earlier.

I decided therefore to stop it as it was not moving on.  So I have re-formatted it again as by using Qick Format, and that has worked instantly.

My worry now is that if I use it, segments will be over-written which are dud.  Is that a risk or will those segments be ignored when it comes to over-writing ?

I just want to get a system back up before the internal hard disk dies.  It will take several days to receive a replacement internal or external hard disk by which time it will be too lat.  So my idea is still to do a Windows backup before it is too late onto the existing internal hard disc and then copy it over onto the external exFAT 1 TB hard disc as a safety measure while everything i still running.  But will it copy over from the internal hard disc onto the external hard disk without damaged segements (apparantly where it kept getting stuck during formatting) without trying to use the damaged segments ?

This is only a short term measure until I can buy a replacement.  

[#11]

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@Baldrick1 wrote:

I have an alternative philosophy for back ups. I run separarate system and data disks. To my mind it's ony the data disk  that needs a regular back up. Ok if tthe system disk goes belly up you might need a reference in order to get back quickly but after that on line updates should rebuild it. Over the years I have collected HDDs after updating computers. I simply put one of these in a caddy and clone the system disk for a back up.

I find that all the updates over a couple of years plus software that I nolonger use clogs up the system disk so every few years I note which programs I wish to keep then reformat the disk and do a new clean install.

---

Me too.

I back up system files on a monthly,weekly,daily,hourly basis [on a second internal disk]

I backup important data files on a daily basis to this second internal disk using a cunning differential backup scheme.

Every few days I sync the backups to an external disk.

Periodically - every few months, 😀 I sync all files to a second large disk.

[#12]

Since your current disk is unreliable, every time you use it is a step closer to its death.

If you can't use your PC without firing up your dodgy disk, you MUST stop using your PC.

BTW You can't just use the copy command to copy system files. Won't work.

[#13]

I agree with @Alex about the disk sounding like it's on it's last legs because hard drives shouldn't click!

Click of Death 

[#14]

No, you misunderstand.  The "clicking" is / was the external 2 TB Backup hard disk, but ONLY when trying to format it.  For some reason, when about an eighth formatted, the formatting would get stuck, both with NTFS and with exFAT.  However, using the "Quick Format" on exFat, it formatted very quickly.  Since then, as a test, I copied about 7Gb of data onto it and all replayed perfectly.  I also did CHKDSK on it and no errors were found  and I got the message "No action needed".  So on the face of it the external hard disk is o.k.

I also did a CHKDSK on the C: drive with the same results.

So I have now used the old Windows 7 Backup programme (which is still available on Windows 10 under Settings > Backup), and created successfully (as far as I know ?) a full back-up set onto my INTERNAL hard drive.  I am now in the process of copying that full back-up set onto my EXTERNAL 1 TB hard drive which at the time of writing shows 37% copied so far.  I have also created a recovery disk.

When that is done, I intend repeating the entire exercise with Macrium as bolt and braces.  That will mean I have two copies.  I have not yet tried it, but maybe Macrium will allow me to backup straight onto the EXTERNAL exFAT 2 TB hard disk.  I hope so.

Throughout all this process the external 1 TB drive has not clicked once.  But as soon as I am able to do so, I will buy another one but I live in a very rural area far from the shops and will have to rely on having one delivered.

[#15]

The clicking you hear when trying to format the disk is the drive head zeroing itself and trying again to find a particular disk sector which is not good. The fact you could write 7GB only indicates that 7GB may be good, there's another 1993GB on the drive!
If you don't want to take the advice from an experienced PC builder (both home & business) I'll leave you to it.