Originally Posted by
ohliuw
no magic here
quick format = erase the file index table
full format - go through each sector of the hard drive
No need for full format, unless you want to do preliminary check for bad sectors
Yes, we all know that.
The problem is, as far as I know, that when you change the partition size, the indices (or FAT table) no longer point to the right places.
Not knowing much about NTFS internals, I'm on shaky ground here. But I've always based decisions on the idea that re-sizing a partition (especially moving the beginning) will require a new format. Because of the times involved, there may be tools so this can be avoided. But, it was getting late and I had a lot of other work to do, so I just took the slow-but-sure route.
Still - the whole point of the post was not what stupid thing I may have been doing, but the fact that a full format on a sizeable drive can take a very long time. If you haven't done a full format in a long time (or ever), you might not be aware of just how time-consuming the process can be! Thank god manufacturers provide drives pre-formatted ... don't they?