In the "volume label" box, enter the name you want to give to the drive.Once you’re sure you’ve picked the right one, right-click it and choose "format".You can open it to make sure it’s the one you want to format. Look for the name of the drive, as well as the amount of storage space.You might want to maximize the window, as there is a lot of information in Disk Management. Look for the drive you want to format.Now you’ve run the program that does the job for you. Click on the result, titled either "Disk management" or "Create and format hard disk partitions".Type "disk management" in the search bar.Windows uses a tool called Disk Management. This is the most straightforward way to start over with a fresh, clean drive. If you already have a hard drive that is configured, you can format it to erase all the contents on it. Here’s a step-by-step overview of the process.
Two of the most common situations are formatting an existing partition and creating and formatting an entirely new partition.
HOW TO FORMAT NEW HARD DRIVE FOR BOTH MAC AND PC HOW TO
How to Format a Hard Drive for Windows 10įormatting a drive in Windows 10 is simple and straightforward. Be sure you understand every step of the process and identify what is best for your hard drive and operating system before proceeding. If you don’t take precautions, you could delete valuable files that you may need. It’s important to be cautious when formatting a drive. Not every file system is compatible with every OS, so keep that in mind. The most common ones, used in conjunction with Windows, are NTFS and FAT32. The file systems vary from operating system (OS) to operating system. This can be done both with hard disk drives (HDD) and the newer solid-state drives (SDD). Formatting deletes all of the data on a chosen disk and sets up a file system. Put simply, formatting a drive means preparing it for use by an operating system.