Generically "formatting" is the name of the process, which comprises low-level formatting, partitioning and high-level formatting. It is the low-level formatting process/step that marks the surfaces of the disks with markers (sector markers) indicating the start of a recording block and this is usually done by the disk manufacturer. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ Formatting a disk (hard drive or floppy) is the process of taking a homogeneous magnetic surface, and dividing it into tracks, each track containing a number of sectors, which are the smallest possible usable portion of the disk. The physical size of the tracks and track sectors has changed over the years and according to manufacturer, and needs to be designed such that the maximum amount of usable space is balanced against the drive head's ability to distinguish between individual sectors. If too many sectors are jammed onto the disk surface, the drive head may take info from two or more adjacent sectors, causing a fatal error. The amount of digital information that can fit in a sector depends on the operating system and manufacturer, with 512 bytes being standard for most floppies (which are now totally obsolete), and the more bytes you can squeeze into a sector, the higher the capacity of the disk. Improvements in drive technology has yielded 3.5 inch floppies that hold much more than 8 inch floppies of the 1970s & 80s, with 5.25 inch floppies being the standard size until around 1990. Hard drives are generally sealed well (keeping a dust free environment) and manufactured to such tolerance that a fingerprint would cause a crash, allowing such high capacity that we see in mobile devices today. But the formatting concept is identical. Only the number of tracks, and the number of sectors per track is variable. All standard magnetic disks (hard or floppy) are readable and rewritable on both sides, and it is not uncommon for hard drives to stack the disks (known as platters) like pancakes, with a read/write head on each side of each platter. This further increases usable data storage space. Unlike a phonographic record, the tracks do not spiral in. They are a series of concentric circles. The head jumps from track to track as it reads or writes. Track 0 is the outermost circle. Each track gets shorter as each successive "track circle" is closer to the inner edge, fewer sectors can occupy a particular track. Magnetic media has been around since forever in the form of tape and cassettes ("8 Track" cassettes were linear tracks (as opposed to circular) that had 4 stereo tracks (4x2=8). Since they were analog as opposed to digital these tracks did not use sectors. Hard drives were introduced in 1956 by IBM and floppies became commercially available in 1971. By 2010 very few motherboards were capable of interfacing with a floppy drive. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ The name of the process is called 'Formatting'. Before a hard disk manufactured from the factory can have data written to it, it must have something done to it called a 'Low Level Format' which prepares the disk for use in a computer. Blank hard disks sold today will already have this process done to them. Allow me to explain how Formatting works. Formatting a disk (hard drive or floppy) is the process of taking a homogenous magnetic surface, and dividing it into tracks, each track containing a number of sectors, which are the smallest possible usable portion of the disk. The physical size of the tracks and track sectors has changed over the years and according to manufacturer, and needs to be designed such that the maximum amount of usable space is balanced against the drive head's ability to distinguish between individual sectors. If too many sectors are jammed onto the disk surface, the drive head may take info from two or more adjacent sectors, causing a fatal error. The amount of digital information that can fit in a sector depends on the operating system and manufacturer, with 512 bytes being standard for most floppies (which are now totally obsolete), and the more bytes you can squeeze into a sector, the higher the capacity of the disk. Improvements in drive technology has yielded 3.5 inch floppies that hold much more than 8 inch floppies of the 1970s & 80s, with 5.25 inch floppies being the standard size until around 1990. Hard drives are generally sealed well (keeping a dust free environment) and manufactured to such tolerance that a fingerprint would cause a crash, allowing such high capacity that we see in mobile devices today. But the formatting concept is identical. Only the number of tracks, and the number of sectors per track is variable. All standard magnetic disks (hard or floppy) are readable and rewritable on both sides, and it is not uncommon for hard drives to stack the disks (known as platters) like pancakes, with a read/write head on each side of each platter. This further increases usable data storage space. Unlike a phonographic record, the tracks do not spiral in. They are a series of concentric circles. The head jumps from track to track as it reads or writes. Track 0 is the outermost circle. Each track gets shorter as each successive "track circle" is closer to the inner edge, fewer sectors can occupy a particular track. Magnetic media has been around since forever in the form of tape and cassettes ("8 Track" cassettes were linear tracks (as opposed to circular) that had 4 stereo tracks (4x2=8). Since they were analog as opposed to digital these tracks did not use sectors. Hard drives were introduced in 1956 by IBM and floppies became commercially available in 1971. By 2010 very few motherboards were capable of interfacing with a floppy drive, except for external 3.5 inch drives via USB connection. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------