Why is Linux so fast?!

[DanGrease]

I currently have installed both Windows XP Professional and Mandrake 9.1 and I was wondering about the difference between them in terms of installation. I remember when I installed Mandrake, I thought I did something wrong because of this thing that I am going to mension. Why when you are in the installation of Linux distros and its time to format the HD it goes so fast compared to Windows that the format can take an hour? (Depending on the HD) I really have tried a few Linux distros and all of them seem to go through the format process very fast, is this something I am doing wrong or it actually is like this? My first time I formatted my HD with Linux I got scared that I did something wrong since it went so fast. Just wondering about this and decided to ask

dan

[VHockey86]

I think it just formats the file allocation table rather than the whole drive... Same as doing a "quick" format in windows. However thats just a guess.. so someone back me up or tell me im an idiot.

[DanGrease]

Okay, I also wondered whats the difference between the normal format and the "quick format" in Windows. Guess this answeres my question but isnt it better when it takes more time to format like in the normal format in Windows? Maybe it erases more from your HD and leaves it cleaner that when doing the quick format like in Linux. Thats anyways for answering

dan

[vass0922]

either format works fine.
The only difference is its more difficult to recover your data after a full format. After a quick format the data is still there it just doesn't have 'card catalog' saying where the data is specifically.

[DanGrease]

Can you do a full format with a Linux distro in the installation? Just wondering, thanks Vass for your answer

dan

[CMonster]

I believe that XP might check for bad blocks by default, that too would take longer.

[originel]

I actually reinstalled Linux today and i noticed that even slack still checks for bad-blocks and it was much faster...but that did slow it down a lot from the last time i manually formatted a drive using mkreiserfs (which was just absurdly fast enough).

but yeah...another reason linux is awesome

[nukes]

If I remember right, the journaled filesystems don't depend on a single master table, as they just store metadata for each directory. Windows (I think) has to reset all the clusters to the root dir. Maybe not though.
Windows can format quickly as well, but it doesn't like doing it on a partition that hasn't already been formatted.