what is the "Enable Compression" option when i try to Format my Partition Drive in my PC? THX!?

Question

and is there any difference if i enable/disable the quick format option?? thx again!!

no, i mean is there any Pros or Cons if i enable the "Enable Compression"??

thx... very well said answerer #3... and thx very much too for those who have answered.

Answer 1

If you select the "Enable Compression" option, all files and folders will be compressed by the operating system.

Compression does save drive space to an extent but exacts a performance toll as the system is continuously compressing and decompressing files. Compression also slows down defragmentation significantly and tends to worsen the fragmentation problem as well.

Normally you should NOT enable this option. Among other things, the free space is NOT accurately reported on compressed volumes. While some files are highly compressible, others are virtually incompressible. Free space estimates are just a guess on compressed volumes and may be highly inaccurate.

There is a major difference between a "normal" and "quick" format in the time required to complete the formatting process. A quick format will complete in a few seconds while a full format can take hours depending upon the size of the partition.

A normal or full format entails a full surface scan of the hard drive recording surfaces. Any defective sectors are re-allocated during the format process. In the early days of hard drives, this was a critical step since a defective sector is death to any data written on it. The earliest hard drives came with a defective sector map in the documentation and you needed to input this information when formatting the drive. You also needed to run testing and repair utilities regularly to locate and reallocate failing sectors. CHKDSK is one such utility though it sees little use these days.

Modern hard drives still have defective sectors, just like their older cousins did. Up to 10% of the sectors on any drive are potentially defective even today. Due to the extemely close tolerances involved in hard drive technology, this is entirely normal. Modern hard drives are able to deal with defective sectors on-the-fly and will reallocate defective sectors automatically with no data loss. This has lead to the feasibility of the quick format. The quick format forgoes the full surface scan since it is no longer necessary and dramatically reduces the time to complete the format task.

Contrary to what at least one other poster stated, there is NO harm or risk to your drive using a quick format! You'll waste a ton of time with a full format and gain nothing in reliability. Modern hard drives hide defective sectors from the OS so a full format won't even know that they are there.

Answer 2

It enables windows to use compression on the folders on your hard drive, if you have a nice fast computer decompression should be a transparent thing but if you have an older PC decompression will take longer. It's a space saving thing except those files that don't compress much such as mp3's pictures and video. Quick format doesn't clear the hard drive, it just resets the pointers to where free memory is available on the hard drive. OK? Good luck!

Answer 3

Enable File And Folder Compression

Answer 4

Enable compression makes it so you can compress your files to save space, and I haven't noticed any difference when doing a normal format, and a quick format. The quick one is very quick though.

Answer 5

What I do in this case is: Boot from a Linux Live USB then use a partitioning tool to delete all partitions. Then I create a new one for windows and set the flag to bootable. Reboot - then install windows 7!

Answer 6

yes there is difference in quick format and normal format. don't do quick format a lot of times, its not healthy for your drive

best of luck