How to fully format external HD without leaving it running for days?

Weird problem but yeah, here goes:

I have a 4TB external HD (actually a regular HD on a USB dock but whatever, I guess) which I think has bad sectors. I'd like to complete a full format on it and use it as a secondary dump/backup/TV media drive. However, I have noticed I never have enough time to format it. I can't leave my computer running, stuck to a clunky USB device for what seems to be multiple days.

Is there any other way? Can I partition it and format it in partitions and then merge them for the same effect of bad sectors checked? If I ever quick format an HD, will whatever check disk done on it in the past canish and all bad sectors are in use again?

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4 comments

You need to perform a low level format to get all of the bad sectors marked. After that, you can partition and perform a normal format. When that is complete, if it still shows as bad in CrystalDickInfo, I wouldn't trust it.