When you format a hard disc, you remove all of the data from it and create a file system that allows your operating system to read data from the drive and write data to the drive. So If you want to use a hard disc with Windows, you must format it first.
How To Format Your Hard Drive On Your Windows PC – What You Need to Know
You can format a hard drive using: (1) File Explorer (2) in Disk Management, (3) in a Command Prompt, Each method has its pros and cons. Here’s how to do it.
How To Format Hard Drive or SSD
When you format a hard drive or SSD, you completely erase its contents and prepare it to hold new data. It’s the same process you use to prepare a new hard drive or SSD that you buy. Formatting a hard drive or SSD doesn’t delete your files immediately. This gives you a chance to back up important files that you want to keep. After you format a hard drive or SSD, you can’t undo the process unless you have a backup of your files. Be sure that you’ve saved any files that you want to keep before you format your hard drive or SSD.
How to formate hard drive using file expolorer
- Press “Windows + E” to open File Explorer
- Right-click on the hard drive or SSD And Select Formate
- Select File System as NTFS (in mac os you can choose “FAT32” or “exFAT” file systems.)
- enable the checkbox for “Quick Format And click Start
Right-click on the hard drive or SSD And Select Formate
Select File System as NTFS (in mac os you can choose “FAT32” or “exFAT” file systems.)
Enable the checkbox for “Quick Format And click Start
How To Format Hard Drive From Disk Management
In this method, you will learn how to format your hard drive using the Disk Management. Follow these steps
- Press Windows + X Choose Disk Management
2. You’ll find Connected hard drive or SSD storage, usually marked “Disk” or above. On the right, it will show the primary partition. Right-click on it and select “Format”.
3. Next, name the blank hard drive or solid-state drive under “Volume Labels” and click “Apply.” If you really want to erase all your data rather than just memory references, deselect “Perform a quick format”.then click Ok
That’s how you can format a hard drive in Windows 10 with Disk Management.
How To Format Hard Drive From Command Prompt (CMD)
Step 1: Run Command Prompt as Administrator
- Press Windows + S to open the Windows search feature.
- Type cmd into the context box.
- Right click on Command Prompt and select Run as administrator.
- In cmd, enter the command diskpart..
- Type list disk and press Enter.
- Type select disk * (* represents the number of the disk you want to format) and press Enter.
- If you want to format a disk partition, you also need to type list partition and select partition *, and then press Enter after each command.
- Type clean and press Enter to format a disk.
- Wait until you see “DiskPart succeed in cleaning the disk”.