On electronic media, be it flash drives, floppy disks or hard drives, data is stored in cells, like on a chessboard. They are created programmatically, that is, they cannot be physically viewed on the disk. The process of marking media for such cells is called formatting. As a result of this operation, old data is erased.

Formatting may required, if the media is new. The hard drive you just purchased is not partitioned, so it is not suitable for storing data. Also formatting will help when the file system damaged.

As a rule, format the hard drive before installation new operating system on it. This is done to ensure that the OS functions correctly or to get rid of system garbage. You can also clean the media this way from malicious programs that the antivirus missed.

Why use bios for formatting?

In general, the expression “format via BIOS” is incorrect, because the BIOS itself does not have the necessary options. Formatting is carried out using third-party applications, and bios is needed to change download priorities. You cannot perform such operations on a scratch disk. To clear it, you need to boot from another media.

How to install boot from disk or flash drive

Important! Depending on the motherboard model and, the procedure may differ.

After these steps, the system will always boot from the selected media, but if you need to change the priority only once, you can do the following:

How to format a hard drive using a distribution kit

To format a hard drive in this way, you will need a flash drive or cd\dvd on which the Windows 7 or any other installer is recorded.

Format the hdd using third-party programs

There are other formatting options.

A non-system HDD can be formatted using standard Windows operations. To do this you need:

This method will allow you to change the file system.

You can also use the program Acronis Disc Director. You can even clean your system disk this way. To format your hdd using this application, you should:

Important! If the system partition has been wiped, Windows will not boot.