Does it harm the drive? It depends on what you mean by "harm." Both Fast and "Long" format will destroy the data on your drive.
The "Long" format that you are referring to, probably is a more "secure" form of formatting that will write a series of 1 an 0 over each sector to help prevent other from recovering your data.
In many cases, only a "fast" format is needed. Sometimes, drive corruption might be eliminated by doing the "long" format.