How Long Does It take to Format a Hard Drive?

Theo Lucia

Jan 27, 2024 • Filed to: Answer Hard Drive Problems • Proven solutions

The hard drive format is imperative in cleaning up space on your device and shielding it from hindrances. But depending on the bad factors of the hard drive, it may take endless time to format. Here we’ll define how long does it usually take to format a hard drive, factors that influence it, and how to fix it.

Why Does The Format Process Seem to Take Forever?

• When you go for the complete format on a volume, files are abolished from the capacity that you are formatting, and a hard drive is scanned for corrupted segments. The scan for corrupted segments is the purpose due to which complete format takes more than double time as long as the quick format takes.
• You might think, how long does a quick format take? If you pick the quick format as a choice, the format eradicates data from the partition but does not scan the hard drive for corrupted segments. This option is best when your hard drive has been formerly formatted, and you are also convinced that your drive is not spoiled or not having any of the bad segments.
• How long does it take to eradicate a 1 TB hard drive? It might take a minimum of 2 hours approximately to perform a full format on a 1 TB hard drive.

More Related: How to Recover Corrupted Files in Windows

Factors Influence the Hard Drive Format Time

The extent of a hard drive fitted in a computer is normally measured in Gigabytes. In utmost possibilities, the little need for bulky applications or data file in your business can save money by choosing hard drive space.

The larger file size also influences the hard drive format time. The hard drive is likewise used to collect files to create, including documents, media, music, etc. The documents usually take less space than the media. The applications will frequently make transitory replicas of large documentations while being formulated, growing the need of adequate space on a disk.

The space and sort of hard drive have a straighter bearing on a computer’s performance than its size. If you have a partial size of accessible space left on the hard drive, it can influence presentation if the operating system starts using it for a temporary cache.

Fragmentation arises when the files are fragmented over a hard drive; generally, there isn’t the space to pile all the bytes in a folder in successive order. The extreme fragmentation can impact the hard drive format time as the hard drive has to do extra work to repossess each file from several locations on disk.

How to Fix "A Hard Drive Takes Forever to Format"?

Suppose a quick format of hard drive taking forever; then there are different ways to fix it. Some of the proven ways are given below:

Solution 1: Create and Format the Hard disk drive (Partition) in Windows Explorer

Create Partition

You might think about how long does it take to partition a hard drive. Here we'll show that it takes only a few minutes to partition a hard drive to secure the data or format a portion that contains bad segments that affect the data.

So, the partitioning permits you to assign one portion of your drive to Windows itself and another portion for your stuff like videos, music, pictures, and other data. It will not be demolished even if you restore your operating system.

Step 1: Check for Unused Space and Backup your PC

Firstly, open the file explorer in a window and check for the vacant space for the partition you want to create. Before partitioning your drive, create a backup data of your drive.

Step 2: De-escalate the C: Drive

Click on the windows button and type 'partition' here; you'll see an option 'Create and Format Hard Disk Partition.' Select the option and wait for the window to respond. Now you will be able to see a list of drives installed and their partitions in your system.

To make a new partition, you will have to de-escalate the drive C: partition firstly. Click the right button and select ‘Shrink Volume’ as shown in the image below:

Now the window will ask you how much space you want to free up in megabytes. Ensure that you have enough room to fit the files you suppose to put on the second partition. Then, click the ‘Shrink’ button and hold back for the partitioning process to complete.

Format Partition

• Click on ‘My Computer’
• Select the drive you would like to format, then right-click on it and select the format from the drop-down list (as shown in the image attached below).

• When the format dialogue box releases, you can enter the volume size, though it is suggested to keep it at the default size. You can also arrange a file system for the drive to be formatted. Now click on 'start.'
• Now, after clicking the ‘start’ button, a cautionary window will appear. If you are confident to format the drive, you can click the ‘OK’ (refer to the image below) and go ahead with the formatting.

Solution 2: Format Hard Disk Drive in Windows Disk Management

• Start your computer, as usual, press the windows button and type ‘R’ to open the Run dialog box.
• When the box opens, type msc and then click ‘OK’.

• The disk management window will open. Set aside the drive you want to format by right click and choose format. You can also rename drive here.

• Now a format box will appear in which you’ll choose the file system for your drive. Here, you’ll choose to do a quick format if required. Click OK, and you're done.

More Related:
How To Partition a Hard Drive on Windows 11
What Is MSR Partition and How To Create/Delete It

How to Recover Data after A quick Format?

The Wondershare Recoverit software given by Wondershare can help you recover your data even after formatting the hard drive. It is a most powerful hard drive recovery program that can easily get your lost data back securely and effectively. To recover lost data using Recoverit, you need to follow three steps given below:

Step 1: Launch Recoverit Data Recovery Program, select the formatted hard drive to get started.

Step 2: Recoverit will start scanning the drive or search the lost data.

Step 3: Now, after completion, you can check the whole recovered data. You can select the files or data you want to save and click 'Recover' to save all the recovered files.

How long does it take to reformat a laptop?

If we talk about reformatting a laptop, it might take around 30 minutes to completely restore the partition that will reload the operating system, install drivers and originals software that came with your laptop.

Conclusion

You might need to format the hard drive for any reason. You can do it in several ways. You have gone through how long does it take to format a hard drive in the sections mentioned above. The points mentioned above will help you straightway formatting a hard drive or a partition of a hard drive. The approximate time you can note from the points given above for formatting a hard drive or securing your data from a breach. You can also reformat your data using Recoverit software if, in any case, you accidentally lost your precious information stored in your Laptop, PC, or hard drive.