Creating a USB bootable version always does a Full Format

[HaroldFinch]

I need to run Hard Disk Sentinel on a USB flash drive in order to diagnose a problematic SSD on my main computer.

I followed the official instructions (https://www.hdsentinel.com/usbboot.php/ sorry for not making a proper link, but I cannot use url)

That process ultimately worked, but it took forever.

The reason why is that with both USB flash drives that I tried, HDSDosUsb always did a Full Format of the flash drive.

The first drive was ~32 GB in size and the Full Format looked like it would take > 1 hour, so I canceled that and used a smaller ~16 GB drive.

With both flash drives, I verified that in MS Windows I could right click on them in File Explorer and do a Quick Format which completed in maybe 3 seconds, so there appears to be nothing wrong with the flash drives.

The official instructions state "USB drive preparation is usually done in 5-30 seconds" but then cryptically note "in some cases full format may be required which takes longer time. It is recommended to use smaller capacity USB drives (2 GB or smaller) for this purpose".

Why does HDSDosUsb sometimes decide that it must do a slow Full Format?

Is there any way that you could present the reasoning to the user and let them decide whether or not to do a Full or Quick Format?

[hdsentinel]

Thanks, but there is absolutely no bug/problem here...

> Why does HDSDosUsb sometimes decide that it must do a slow Full Format?

NOT HDSDosUsb "decides" this.
HDSDosUsb always tries to perform quick format first. When it fails for any reason - then it automatically needs to perform the complete format.
The reason can be related to the USB pendrive, USB controller, USB hub (if used) or something else (drivers, 3rd party software or so).

Alternatively, you may use Rufus to create a bootable FreeDos USB pendrive and simply copy the HDSDOS.EXE to the pendrive and launch it after boot
( https://www.hdsentinel.com/hdsdos/hdsdos.zip - extracted to the USB pendrive after made it bootable)