Tech

How to format an external hard drive?

Formatting a hard drive can be necessary in different areas, so it is always good to have at least basic knowledge about the methods and tools available to accomplish this. Also, in some cases, it can be crucial to not having to throw away a healthy drive.

 

Whether you need to format an external hard drive, to update the operating system of your computer, your mini PC, use it in a console or any other requirement you have, then we have compiled the most efficient methods, depending on the system or Format:

 

Format hard drive in Windows 10

How to format a hard drive in Windows 10 or format an SSD is relatively easy, as the operating system itself offers self-operating tools with an intuitive interface to do this task yourself.

To format an external hard drive in Windows 10, connect it to the USB port and wait for it to be recognized by the computer, which should show a pop-up message, display an action window or directly open a tab, to view the contents of the drive. external hard drive.

Go to Start, type Disk Management in the search box and press the Enter key. This will open a new window where you can see a list of all the hard drives connected to your computer, whether internal or external.

Find the external hard drive you want to format in the list and select it with the pointer. At the bottom you should be able to see the partitions created, as well as details about the drive.

When formatting the disk, it is recommended to leave it as it was when it was new, so we advise you to delete the partitions one by one. However, you must leave them clean by right-clicking on them and selecting Format. This will start the formatting process automatically and you just have to wait for it to finish.  

Once finished, you will only have to select the partitions one by one, right click and choose “Delete volume”, so that, in the end, you will have a single partition on your formatted disk.

Format hard drive in Windows 7

If you are working with the Windows 7 OS and want to know how to format a disk using its own tools, you must first navigate to the application.

Start by clicking Start, then go to Control Panel. Here you must choose the System and Security option, in order to access the Administrative Tools and, finally, the Computer Management.

In this space you should find the Disk Management section, where you can see the disk drives and thus choose the one you want to format. Right-click on the drive and choose Format to delete data and partitions.

Format hard drive from CMD in Windows

With the diskpart command, formatting can be made easy and to do so in Start search type cmd and open a Command Prompt window.

Once in the window, you must type diskpart and press Enter. Then, type the word list disk and, again, Enter. This will display the connected disks and the number assigned to each, which is relevant, as the following command will need to be accompanied by this number.

In the next step, you will need to type select disk x, where X should be the number corresponding to the disk you want to format. Hit Enter again and now type the word clean, to format diskpart. When it’s done, create a new partition with the create partition primary command, choose the format, and you’re done.

Format external hard drive on Mac

In case the computer is running Mac OS, the steps to master when learning how to format an external hard drive are different due to the differences in each operating system.

In this OS, the program to format the hard drive is called Disk Utility and it is located inside the Utilities folder in Applications. When you run the program, a window will open with a sidebar showing you the connected drive.

Select the drive and click Erase, and then choose the format you want the partitions to be created in. After a few seconds, the process will be finished and the disc will be ready.

Common problems

Here are some of the most common issues when trying to format a drive along with simple but effective solutions:

“My external hard drive does not appear in Disk Management”

Sometimes, you may not find the removable hard drive in Disk Management program, and this is usually due to some driver issue.

To check it, access the Device Manager of the computer and in the Disk Drives section, find the Unknown USB Device, to right click on it and select Uninstall.

Once the process is finished, disconnect the unit, restart the computer and reconnect the disk, so that the OS takes care of downloading the driver again.

“Windows does not recognize the external hard drive”

If you have found that your computer or mini PC running Windows does not recognize the external hard drive, you should probably consider basic actions such as plugging it into another USB port or testing if the problem persists when using it on another computer.

If so, we advise you to install the necessary drivers. For this task, you will need to go to Start and type Device Manager. Here, you will find all the components connected to your computer. Look for the Disk Drive section, find the external one and right-click on it, and then select the Update driver option.

 

“My Mac does not recognize the external hard drive”

This inconvenience in Mac computers is generally due to software incompatibility. You can fix this by testing if an OS reboot works, or by trying other USB ports on your computer as well.

If that doesn’t fix your problem, Finder might not show the disk. To check if this is the case, run the app on your Mac and navigate to Preferences. In the tabs that will appear, go to General and select the external storage units.

As you can see, there are many ways to format a drive, whether you prefer to use Mac or Windows. Some may be more complex or tedious than others, but if you carry out the steps properly and without skipping any, you should have no problem taking care of your hard drives. 

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