From the Drive to format drop-down menu, select the drive and click the Format Drive button. If the drive size is greater than 2TB, the Configuration option will appear on the Format your WD external drive dialog box. Select the Factory Default option in the Configuration section and then click the Format Drive option. The last reason for Windows was unable to format removable disk is that there is no partition on the hard drive. However, you will find there is a drive letter for it. Thus you are able to see the removable disk in Disk Management and then receive the formatting suggestion.
If you newly bought an external hard drive or SSD, you must initialize the disk before Logical Disk Manager can access it. Or you may want to initialize or reformat hard a disk for reuse or when the hard drive not working. This post will guide you to initialize, create new partition, and format external hard drive on Windows computers.
Note:Also work for hard drives, USB flash drives, SD card, and other mainstream storage devices.
Tips: Make sure you have backed up files (if any) on the external drive as the following operations will wipe your data off the drive. If you can't access your data for disk corruption, using iBoysoft Data Recovery for Windows to get files off first.
Removable Disk Format
There are two ways to initialize, format, or reformat external hard drives.
Method 1: Initialize and Format External Hard Drive with Disk Management
How to initialize an external hard drive on Windows?
- 1. Right-click This PC/My Computer and choose Manage in the context menu to enter Computer Management.
- 2. Select Disk Management on the left sidebar and open this utility.
- 3. Connect your external hard drive to your PC. New SSD or hard drive will prompt to initialize.
- 4. Right-click on the external hard drive marked as 'Unknown' and 'Not Initialized', then choose Initialize Disk. If the external hard drive is listed as Offline, you need to first right-click it and set it back to Online.
Tips: Some USB drives may not have the option 'Initialize Disk', then you just need to jump to get the disk formatted for work.
- 5. Click OK to accept the default partition style or change the partition style as you like.
For partition styles, you have two options on Windows computers. Upgrade from os x yosemite to catalina.
- Most PCs use the GUID Partition Table (GPT) disk type for hard drives and SSDs. It's more robust and allows for volumes bigger than 2 TB.
- Master Boot Record (MBR) is used by 32-bit PCs, older PCs, and removable drives such as memory cards that have a size smaller than 2TB.
How to create new simple volume for external hard drives in Disk Management?
After choosing the partition style for the drive you want to format, you can now partition this external hard drive.
- 1. Right-click on the external hard drive (often marked Unallocated space) and select the New Simply Value option.
- 2. Click Next and follow the wizard to specify the volume size, assign the drive letter, and choose the File System you want.
For the disk file system, three types are available in Windows.
- Choose FAT32 if your external hard drive is less than 1 TB. And if each file of yours is less than 4 GB ( like photos, songs, documents), FAT32 is fine to use.
- You can choose exFAT if your external hard drive is relatively large and you want to use the external hard drive for Mac and Windows.
- Choose NTFS if your external drive is an SSD or a large-capacity hard drive. Also, for Windows installation and file backups, NTFS is a more ideal option.
- 3. Click Finish to complete this process.
How to format external hard drives on Windows?
If the external hard drive is initialized and you need to reformat it for reasons like disk corruption, you need to:
- 1. Find the external hard drive in Disk Management, right-click on it, and choose Format from the contextual menu.
- 2. Then set the disk information, including allocation unit size, volume label and file system.
- 3. Check Perform a quick format and click OK to format the external hard drive.
Method 2: Initialize and Format External Hard Drive with Diskpart
Another way to do this is through the command prompt with diskpart command line. To initialize a new disk or wipe an existing disk, using Windows snap-in tool - Diskpart with the following steps.
- 1. Click Start, type 'cmd' in the search bar, press Enter, and then run the Command Prompt as an administrator.
- 2. In the pop-up window, type 'diskpart' in the prompt and press Enter and then type 'list disk' to list all the disks detected by your computer.
- 3. Type 'select disk' and the external hard drive that you want to initialize and press Enter. For example, 'select disk 2'.
- 4. Type 'attributes disk clear readonly' and press Enter if you don't want other to make changes to your hard drive, or else, skip this step.
- 5. Type 'online disk' and press Enter so that Diskpart can access it in online condition.
- 6. Type 'convert mbr' or 'convert gpt' and press Enter to change the selected disk to MBR or GPT partition table.
Now you have initialized the disk with Diskpart, you can create partition and format the external hard drive for file saving.
- 7. Type 'list disk' again and press Enter to list all disks so that you know the disk number on which you want to create a partition.
- 8. Type 'select disk 2 ' and press Enter. You need to replace 2 with the number of your external hard drive.
- 9. Type 'create partition primary size=61440'and press Enter. Replace 61440 with the free space that you want to allocate for the partition.
- 10. Assign a drive letter by typing assign letter=H and press Enter. You can replace H with other available drive letters.
Now, a new partition is created on the external hard drive. But to save files on the disk, a partition needs to be formatted.
- 11. Type 'list volume' and press Enter to list all the volumes under this disk.
- 12. Find the target volume and then type ' select volume * ' and press Enter. Replace * with your volume number.
- 13. Type 'format fs=ntfs quick label=test' and press Enter. You can replace ntfs with the file system you want (like exfat and fat32) and label it with a different name.
After the external hard drive is initialized, partitioned, and formatted, you'll be able to save photos, videos, documents, or whatever you want on the hard drive.
Summary :
When you get a new hard drive or you are unable to access a drive, you may need to format hard drive with a drive formatting software utility. This screenshot-based tutorial will illustrate you the two most popular and reliable hard drive format tool and show you how to format hard drive with detailed steps.
Quick Navigation :
If you're installing a new hard drive, or need to clean all the data on your hard drive for some reasons, or facing hard drive errors, you will need to format your drive.
It is quite easy to get disk formatter or hard drive formatting software. But if you want to find a reputable and easy-to-use one, freeware MiniTool Partition Wizard is recommended as this hard drive format tool is trusted by tens of millions of people and it is also very user-friendly.
Format Hard Drive with MiniTool Partition Wizard Free Edition
MiniTool Partition Wizard Free Edition is a reputable all-in-one disk partition manager, which can help you not only format hard drive Windows 10 but also enable users to resize partition, check file system, convert FAT to NTFS without data loss, convert MBR to GPT, copy disk, or migrate Windows OS to an SSD etc.
With its intuitive interface and easy-to-use procedures, the software is rated as the most excellent disk formatter. Now read the following contents to see the simple steps.
Step 1. Download MiniTool Partition Wizard Free Edition by clicking the following button. Install and launch it to get its main interface.
Step 2. Right-click the drive you want to format and select Format Partition.
Need To Format WD External Hard Drive
Step 3. At this window, you are allowed to specify partition label, file system as well as cluster size. You can format the drive's file system to FAT32, NTFS, exFAT, Ext2, Ext3, satisfying all your needs. After resetting these parameters, you can click OK.
Step 4. Click Apply on the upper right corner to execute the pending operation.
You see! By using this hard drive formatting software, you can format hard drive Windows 10 in just a few clicks. And its other features are also very simple to use. However, for users who don't want to resort to third-party software, they can try the windows built-in partition tool – Disk Management.
Utilize Windows Built-in Hard Drive Format Tool – Disk Management
Using Windows built-in hard drive format tool Disk Management to format hard drive is a great choice for users who don't want to install third-party software.
However, it is not as powerful and easy-to-use as third-party software like MiniTool Partition Wizard Free Edition. Disk Management can only perform simple disk and partition operations like create partition, format partition, extend or shrink partition, which could be inconvenient for users who want to reconp their hard drives at ease.
However, if you just want to format hard drive and that's all, you may follow the steps to go ahead.
Step 1. Right-click the Windows Start menu and select Disk Management. Then you will get the following interface.
Step 2. Choose the partition that you want to format. And then right-click it to select Format.
Step 3. https://morknv.over-blog.com/2021/01/leisure-suit-larry-reloaded-1-0.html. The volume label, file system and allocation unit size are set by default. You may also specify the volume label, file system and allocation unit size by yourself and then click OK.
Step 4. Read the warning and click OK to continue.
Step 5. At this time, the hard drive has been formatted. All data on the drive have been cleared and for inaccessible hard drives, they can be used as a normal one again.
Afer seeing the 2 demonstrations above, you may find that it is so easy to format hard drive Windows 10 with the two drive formatting software utility. Try using them when necessary.
Conclusion
After learning how to format a hard drive with MiniTool Partition Wizard Free Edition and Window built-in utility Disk Management, you may choose a suitable format tool according to your needs.
How To Format Removable Drive
If you have any question about how to format hard drive Windows 10 or you have any other good hard drive format tool to recommend, you can leave a message on the following comment zone and we will response as soon as possible. If you need any help when using MiniTool software, you can contact us via [email protected].
