What do you mean? When you start the installation of new OS you have the option to format the old one, SSD or HDD.
Do I do full format or quick format? I thought that there are special instructions for formating SSD drives.
if its brand new and you start the windows installation you won't get an option to format. You only get the option to create a new partition, but when you start the installation it automatically performs a quick format. Also to the OP, The difference between a quick and full format is that in a quick format all that happens is the first binary number of every file is changed. So if for instance one file starts with a 0 it will be changed to a 1 and vice versa meaning they can't be read anymore and the disk appears empty. This is how people can still retrieve data from hard drives that have been formatted. A full format completely wipes all blocks/cells of the hdd or ssd meaning that nothing can be retrieved, however, parts of files can still remain on the drive until written over again.
You only really need a quick-format. The SSD I assume has not been previously used so there is no need to do a full-format. Besides a full-format will take some more time.
A full format will just shorten the life of the drive as well as all it does is write a bunch of zero's, you can check your bios out for something called secure erase if you need to wipe the drive otherwise just stick with quick format.
Pretty sure it doesnt do that but just wipes the file table on disk which contains the filename and location(s) on disk and recovery of a quick formatted disk is just a rebuild of the table.
+1 ... for SSD use ONLY secure erase http://www.makeuseof.com/tag/securely-erase-ssd-without-destroying/
If you want to prepare a SSD for installation: boot to console: diskpart list disk select disk x (x is number of the SSD) clean you are good to go. Secure Erase is only needed if you need to reset performance. No need in most cases, especially NOT on new SSDs.
