Absolute Beginner's Guide to A+ Certification

Using Format with Floppy and Hard Disks

Format works in very different ways, depending on whether it is used on a hard or floppy disk. When Format is used on a hard drive, it creates a master boot record, two file allocation tables, and a root directory (also referred to as the root folder). The rest of the drive is checked for disk surface errors—any defective areas are marked as bad to prevent their use by the operating system. Format appears to “destroy” the previous contents of a hard disk, but if you use Format on a hard disk by mistake, Norton Utilities and some other programs can be used to unformat the drive and enable you to recover most, or even all, your information because most of the disk surface is not changed by Format.

The hard ...