Betty1 Posted November 29, 2004 Share Posted November 29, 2004 I've got some floppy disks that I want to format, erase everything off of them. But I don't want to go through and delete each one separately. Is there any way I can erase the whole disk at the same time? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
TCH-Andy Posted November 29, 2004 Share Posted November 29, 2004 I would do a Quick format on each one - this will erase all the data, and format it fairly quickly. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Betty1 Posted November 29, 2004 Author Share Posted November 29, 2004 I would do a Quick format on each one - this will erase all the data, and format it fairly quickly. How do you do a quick format? Is it done in the c prompt? And if it is, what's the command for it? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
TCH-Andy Posted November 29, 2004 Share Posted November 29, 2004 Hi, It depends which operating system you are using. In windows, generally, right click on the A: drive in File Manager (or my computer) and select format - at the bottom there should be a tick box for quick format. From the c:> prompt then it would generally be "format a: /q" Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Madmanmcp Posted November 29, 2004 Share Posted November 29, 2004 The topic above says "Format A Hard Disk?", yet the body of the note says "I've got some floppy disks that I want to format". Which is it? Assuming its a floppy and not the hard drive I would recommend you not use the quick format. Especially if these are old floppy disks. A quick format will only clear out the FAT (file allocation table) and leave all the data intact. A full format will not only clear the FAT but it will rewrite all sectors and clusters and if it finds any errors will flag them as unusable. It may take a little longer to format the disks but you will have a better chance of reading your data after its been written. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
TCH-Andy Posted November 29, 2004 Share Posted November 29, 2004 Good point Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
TCH-Bruce Posted November 29, 2004 Share Posted November 29, 2004 And if you are running windows, open Windows Explorer, right click on the floppy drive (with a diskette inseted) and select Format. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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