Quite often, third-party utilities have to be used to service hard drives, solid-state drives, and removable drives, because the built-in tools of Windows operating systems are unable to perform some actions and give the desired result to the user. To a very high degree, this applies to the so-called low-level formatting, which not only eliminates possible errors on the storage media, but also restores the factory breakdown, bringing the drive to a usable state.
In particular, not to mention hard drives, utilities of this plan are very widely used to bring flash drives and memory cards to life. One of the most famous and powerful, according to the vast majority of experts, is the HDD Low Level Format Tool. How to use this application, and then we'll see. At first glance, everything seems to be simple, but some important points must be taken into account, which should be discussed separately.
What is HDD LLFT?
First of all, let's turn to theoretical information and see what the HDD Low Level Format Tool is. As mentioned above, its main purpose is to format any type of media with complete deletion of data, as well as restore its factory state. In the case of hard drives, after such manipulations it may be necessary to re-initialize.
But if we talk about how to use the HDD Low Level Format Tool in relation to memory cards and flash drives, after formatting, they do not need to take any additional actions, because at the end of the process they are automatically determined by operating systems. In addition, this application is very often the tool that allows you to bring any drive back to life when no other means simply help or prove to be ineffective.
Features of released versions
Today, the main program as such can be found in several modifications, among which for almost every release there is a regular (stationary) version and a portable modification. In particular, for the Russified modification (HDD Low Level Format Tool 4.40 Rus) such versions are provided. But in terms of installation, it is far from always advisable to use a release intended for installation on a computer hard drive. The portable utility works just as well and can be launched from any removable media, saving its own settings on it.
Program installation
Now we will go directly to issues related to how to use the HDD Low Level Format Tool, and consider options for installing or running the program, if the user has a portable version. If you have the main installer on all Windows systems above the seventh version, you must run it exclusively on behalf of the administrator (if the built-in registration of the super administrator is not disabled), then simply follow the instructions of the installer.
You can also use installers in the form of executable command line applets designed for the so-called silent installation. To install the program in this version, additional attributes can be used (“/ silent” and “/ verysilent” when starting the main silent installation file or the key “/ portable = 1” in the case of starting the unpacking batch file, both applets have the CMD extension).
Note: both batch files, even if the "account" of the superuser is disabled, must be run exclusively on behalf of the administrator, otherwise you will receive an error message.
For the portable version, as already clear, just run the executable EXE-file.
But in this case, the installer will first unpack the portable modification, offer to select the interface language and perform some additional actions at the end of the process (run the utility and visit the developer's website). By and large, these items can be deactivated.
Activation code
Despite the fact that each release is related to software products with a commercial license, it is absolutely optional to activate the program.
This may be required only for stationary installation, but the portable version works just fine without it. In general, the code may be required only for the user to get a higher formatting speed and lifelong installation of updates. Decide how much you need it, but, as already noted, the application can be used without code completely free.
How to use HDD Low Level Format Tool?
Now we proceed directly to the first launch of the program. Suppose you prefer a portable rather than a stationary version.
After the first launch of the utility, you will be prompted to select the device with which you need to perform some action. Please note that the application is able to detect even those media that are not recognized by the operating system itself or when formatting them, the system gives error notifications related to the inability to complete the process. There is a link to disk management in the start window, however, clicking on it opens a standard Windows partition. By and large, the average user does not need it.
We will not provide complete instructions for the HDD Low Level Format Tool, but restrict ourselves to the most important points. After selecting the media, the main window with several tabs opens. Among them, the most important is the low-level formatting tab, since in the information section for some devices information may not be displayed. You can also get additional information in the SMART section, but this is not absolutely necessary. In addition, some flash drives may not support such a procedure, which will be reported directly in the program window.
Finally, by going to the tab for performing the basic operation on formatting the selected device, you need to select the formatting option, and then activate its start.
Quick cleanup is quite different from standard Windows tools and completely removes partitions and boot entries on the media. The second option, which implies absolutely full formatting, just needs to be chosen (especially if it concerns the complete failure of the drive). Depending on the capacity of the time, a lot may be required, but the result exceeds all expectations.
Possible errors when working with removable media
How to use the HDD Low Level Format Tool, sorted out. In conclusion, consider some of the most common errors. In particular, the impossibility of formatting removable media may be due to the fact that USB ports do not work correctly in the system, drivers are not installed for the corresponding interfaces, controllers, or card readers (or incorrectly installed), etc.
The easiest way out is to update the control software through the usual “Device Manager”. If this does not help, you can use automatic update utilities such as Driver Booster or use the identifiers of non-working equipment defined in the "Device Manager" on the Internet, download and install drivers for it yourself.