Does Full Format Write Zeroes to sector then read them back?

https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/wi...ommands/format

Assuming OP means from the gui when using context menu on a drive. it would be the same as running the command from cmd except you have a gui.

if you check off quick format. Order of operations is not clear on any Microsoft documentation or Wikipedia but a full format in windows using format would suggest that it does write zero to the hard drive. if you use diskpart to format then it will show that its checking sectors after going through the index and FS. So id say it wipes the file system on the partition first and then checks sectors and then zeros that data.

The page for format says that /Q override /P so that would suggest if you check off the quick format box then it would be a full format that is checking sectors and writing zeros.

Also tried looking for logs or verbose output there is probably a way natively but not sure.

SSD life span is in the TBW so unless you are really thrashing the drive a lot its not to bad to zero a ssd every now and then. Sometimes you may need to do this like example you are buying a used one and want to zero it before putting it in a computer.

Bree said:

Yes, it writes zeros to the whole disk. It's not clear when it reads, but logic would suggest after writing. If you just want to do a full read check, then use chkdsk /f /r

https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/tr...-zeros-to-disk

missed this post yeah confirms it