5 Tricks to Prevent Accidental or Improper Disk Formatting

Some users have experienced such a case that they accidentally format the wrong drive, thereby suffering miserable data loss. Now, in this article, we will look at this issue and provide 5 tips to avoid such a frustrating situation.

At times, disk formatting can solve multiple problems, like unbootable computer, strangely slow computer, RAW drive, out-of-space drive and so on. Thus, it’s often utilized as a mighty solution when fix drive issues. Yet, if formatting is performed improperly, such as on the wrong drive or selecting the incompatible file system, you will encounter unexpected problems, like data loss. So, in order to help you get rid of such cases, here we will show you 5 effective tips.

5 Tricks to Prevent Accidental or Improper Disk Formatting

1. Regularly Back up Drive

First of all, when it comes to preventing data losses, unquestionably, data backup must be the most important action. Just imagine it. When you formatted a wrong drive unintentionally, if you are holding an updated data backup, you don’t need to worry totally. You can easily restore data from backups, such as to recover PST from backups. Therefore, you have to back up all your devices on a regular basis. Also, if possible, you should adhere to 3-2-1 backup strategy.

2. Double Check Drive

As a matter of fact, accidental and improper formatting is actually one of human careless mistakes. Hence, to avoid such a mistake, you need be more careful. For example, every time when you intend to format a drive, you have to double check the drive to ensure it is the right one and all the drive data has been backed up in advance.

3. Enable Write Protection

In addition, from the perspective of USB flash drive or memory card, to avoid the accidental formatting them, you can make use of write protection function. To be specific, most memory cards have a switch, turning on which will activate write protection. If a card is write-protected, you will be unable to write to it. Of course, you cannot format it as well.

4. Select Right File System

Aside from formatting incorrect drive by mistake, formatting to incompatible file system is also a common serious cause of data loss. Thus, in prior to formatting a drive, you should make clear the target file system. For instance, if you intend to use the drive on Mac, you should format it with Hierarchical File System (HFS). If use the drive in Windows, you can format it with NTFS or FAT.

5. Don’t Interrupt Formatting

Last but not least, in the formatting process, you should keep cautious. Don’t let any dangerous factors interrupt formatting. For example, if you are formatting an internal drive on laptop, you should insure the laptop is powered on all the time. If the drive is an external one, you should never disconnect it during formatting. Or else, the drive may be damaged.

Author Introduction:

Shirley Zhang is a data recovery expert in DataNumen, Inc., which is the world leader in data recovery technologies, including corrupted mdf and outlook repair software products. For more information visit www.datanumen.com

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