What's the difference between fdisk and format?

Question

I'm about to reinstall WinXP SP2 on a friend's pc because it was riddled with virus, spyware, trojans, etc. I want to do a clean install.

Answer 1

You want to use fdisk, THEN format


Fdisk destroys all data on a disk.
Format gives order to a disk

Think of your hard disk as a file cabinet.

Using the fdisk command means thieves come in and steal all your files & folders. You still have your file cabinet, (hard drive), but it's totally empty, and unusable.

Format means a organization company is employed, they come into your file cabinet and fill it with empty folders.
As far as data, the cabinet is still empty, but it's ready to use.

Answer 2

fdisk is used if you want to repartition your hard disk. If you use fdisk to repartition your hard disk, the data that was previously there will not be erased but, you computer will not be able to find it because the FAT addresses have changed. With fdisk, you can delete partitions and create new ones if there is space on the hard disk that has not been given to a partition.

format is used to delete everything that is available on the particular partition but does not remove nor create a partition.
e.g c:> format d:
the above command will format the d: partition and make it like brand new without any data.

Hope that helps.

Answer 3

Fdisk :- used to create partitions on a disk.
Understand it like this, when we buy a house it has partitions, say Living Rooms, Drawing room, Kitchens etc. Similarly on disk also partitions need to be created before a disk can be used, these partitions are 1. Primary Partition 2. Extended Partition.

Format :- Decide the way of storing data on your disk.
This is same as after one has decided that a particular room will be a living room, he decides how to arrange things in the room. Like for best results whether he will follow Chinese way of arrangement, Indian Vastu style etc. Similarly there are various format methods available, to organize/store/access the data on disk. Some of the format standards are FAT 12, FAT16, FAT 32, NTFS. Its recommended to use NTFS while installing Windows XP.

Answer 4

Fdisk manages partitions (it will format over to create partitions too), and format resets the data on that medium to null if fully written over or quick format will just clear data allocation table.

Answer 5

fdisk is used by old DOS way, it's a way to prepare your disk, like partition your disk. fdisk must be used before format.

format is to get the drive (after paritioned, if any) ready to be used. Must be used after using fdisk.

if you're want to reformat your computer, and restinall your XP. XP will take care everything for you.

Answer 6

fdisk is the command. Good luck.

On the other hand you could recover their data simply with a little work. Get AVG antivirus, its free good and takes about, download good antispyware like Spybot and Ad-aware.

Installing a firewall will block out trojans. And there is good anti trojan softwares out there now.

Then get Spyblaster to block off any new stuff.

It takes about three hours but you still have all your software and data.

Answer 7

fdisk is a software to manage your hd. format is erasing all the files in the hd.

if you are using XP there is an option during that process to format the disk. just click that and you are on your way

Answer 8

fdisk is a tool to partition a drive, format will then format the partitions

Answer 9

Take Komando's answer. He's the only one that got it correct.

Answer 10

NOTING HONEY.